Chapter 641 641 Brilliant Ideas
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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As the crew began to disperse through the commercial district closest to the park, the visitors started to arrive, ready for a sneak peek of the new ship from the inside.
The outside of Absolution was impressive enough, but getting to see the interior, with kilometre-high ceilings and vast open spaces, was an entirely different matter. The apartments above the commercial district were off limits, only accessible with a resident access card, but they could see into some of the lower level units that had left their curtains open or which were currently unoccupied, with only the essential furnishings.
The feeling that they got was that of the Capital city on Rae 5, a mix of an urban party atmosphere and luxury usually associated with successful Reaver Companies and wealthy land-bound families.
It painted a very tempting picture of Terminus Trading Company to the guests, and even with so few shops open, there were still plenty of activities to do in the very limited area they could access.
The ship was nine hundred kilometres long. Short of taking a shuttle across its length, there was no way to see even a single percent of it in one night, but the core of the currently occupied area was enough for them, and Nico had made a limited three-dimensional simulation available.
She had left all the sensitive areas out of the map, but the parks and much of the primarily residential area were visible and could be explored by those who wanted to see more than just the city and the park.
The Commanders of the assembled Companies had come to see Max at Central Park, right next to the stage where he had addressed the crew a few hours ago, led by the Captains of the Black Dog Mercenary Company.
"Commander Keres Max. I must say, you have done very well for yourself. The rest of us are fighting for the resources to create a proper colony on a planet, and you built your own moon-sized ship." The Mercenary laughed.
"We have some advantages since we are the ones testing all of the next-generation technology. Give it a decade or so, and anyone who can manage to obtain the crew could make one of their own." Max countered, making the Mercenary laugh even harder.
"You have what, four million people here now, and it barely fills one sector on one floor when they're not spread out to work. Even with all the resources that my mercenaries have accomplished, we couldn't fill a ship like this if we wanted to.
The most recent releases for Cutters are very tempting, though. I believe they're the ones you're using on Terminus, though I suspect that a fresh generation of them has been made for this glorious Operations Center, as you called it."
Max smiled back at the half-drunk and clearly overwhelmed Mercenary leader. "Those Cutters are available from the shipyards here in the Rae 5 system. If I'm not mistaken, they have all signed agreements to make royalty payments in exchange for the plans. Anything bigger is overkill on almost every mission, anyhow.
Not many planets are sending out a Destroyer full of Cargo at a time, and even fewer are having a problem big enough to need one to come loaded with Mecha to save them."
A few more Reaver Captains had arrived to catch the last bit of the conversation and chuckled at that.
"Given this new tech, only a full-on Klem invasion would need more than one or two Cutters worth of forces to deal with. We have heard a lot about the battle against the Volga, though we were with the portion of the Company that stayed behind.
Most of the big bosses are still over there, sorting things out or moving trade goods to Alliance customers. Even after factoring in losses, the invasion has been a big win for most of us, just with the price of the trade contracts.
We've got loads of Alliance goods coming back as well, the sort of stuff that we don't know how to make ourselves or just stuff that seemed kind of cool. Rae 5 Star System looks very different than it did before the Volga decided to play the fool." A Reaver in a purple felt top hat informed the group.
"That's true. The Replicators can work miracles for food production, but gathering so much raw material just to feed mass consumerism isn't happening with most Commanders. Besides, what would they do with that much shiny junk once people got bored of it?" Another Commander joked.
"Absolution has a very good recycling system. Pretty much everything organic can be recycled into a new product with just a bit of extra energy consumed. I know not every ship has the sort of excess power supply that we do, but it's an option." Max suggested.
"You have been living in the future too long. According to the data specs of the Cutters available for purchase from the Moon Base factory, my current Cutter has eight percent of the total power supply. If I used Replicators for everything like you do here, I would have to drop out of warp at every meal.
The power usage is insane. It's just that your ships have so much of it available from these fancy new Warp Drives that you don't notice." The first Commander pointed out.
His ship was an early Warp 4 generation Cutter, and it was the only ship in his Company's fleet, so simply replacing it was out of the question, and even overhauling it was enough to nearly bankrupt them. So they had been paying the premium to use Portals whenever possible to speed up his deliveries.
Unless they were going to just straight up crash the economy and try to rebuild it from scratch, it would take generations to fully change over from old tech to new, and by then, there would be another new generation of equipment available, and who knew what sort of things humanity would have come up with in the intervening decades.
"I know it can be frustrating, being a generation behind when things are changing this fast, but keep an eye open for announcements from Absolution. After we have things up and running, I plan to make some very lucrative deals for the Reaver Trade Group members that do a lot of business with the Terminus Trading Company.
It's no secret that we have all the best toys and that many of them are still very much experimental. Even Absolution is a prototype, and the final version that gets distributed to whoever can afford such a monster of a vessel will have millions of refinements, both large and small. But we also have a lot of techs that have been finalized, and I am prepared to offer it at a steep discount to our loyal contractors."
The Commanders chuckled at Max's sales pitch, but he had a point. Who would turn down his missions if they could get access to the latest generation of gear at a heavy discount as part of their payment?
The details weren't clear, but they recognized a number of the Reavers who were wearing Absolution Staff uniforms, and as far as they knew, they were from the Crimson Fists, which everyone knew were having troubles, but not nearly as many knew had been disbanded and absorbed into the Terminus Trading Company.
From the visitors' point of view, it looked like Max had just bought out an entire Reaver Company so he could have skilled staff for his new ship. It was tempting to the more cash-strapped Commanders, but it set a scary precedent. It wasn't often that a Company had that sort of money floating around, and even rarer that they would try to buy out someone who wasn't even a competitor.
But then, none of them were surprised that a Reaver party was as much for showing off as it was for recreation. If you couldn't show off your power and toys, why even bother bringing strangers to the party? When you were behind, you threw parties for those you could trust and built up your network. You didn't invite every Company Leader in half a Galaxy to come to see your new ship.
Max listened to all of the various theories about what the Terminus Trading Company was up to while he drank and chatted with the Commanders and even made a note of some of them. That many brilliant minds in one spot generated a lot of well-thought-out and detailed conspiracy theories and speculative conversations that he could use as inspiration for their actual future course of action.
Chapter 642 642 Orientation Day
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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The party ran until well after noon the next day before it finally wound down. Most of the staff went home early, but by the time dinner was starting to be served at the houses further from the chaos, there were hundreds of thousands of Reavers passed out anywhere that seemed remotely comfortable. Up against trees, on the grass of the parks, and on the floors and tables of the entertainment venues that had been opened the night before to get a head start on building their reputations as the place to be.
It would be a few more hours until many of them recovered enough to start getting mobile again, but the staff had gathered for their first day of official orientation. They had a lot of new technology to learn, as well as practices and procedures set by their leaders. Things were done differently on every planet, so when you had an eclectic group like this, you had to set a single standard.
That meant negotiations of a sort. The way that the leaders of the divisions were used to doing things wasn't always the best way, but some of the employees would have other, more efficient ideas, and the Reavers were always open to easier ways to get their jobs done.
The most surprising idea for the public services office, which took care of the paperwork for employees and residents, actually came from a collaboration between a Dryad and one of the Vampires that had snagged a position in middle management.
Their suggestion was that everyone would get a nanotech implant to verify their identity and current document status. That was normal for Kepler and for the Vampires, who had a more primitive version than the System, but many of the Reavers and Cygnus citizens couldn't use System-based features, so it hadn't been in the manager's initial plan.
It wouldn't give them a full-on System, but it would carry all of their identification and records inside their bodies so that they didn't need to produce anything at the offices and so that every clinic could get all their medical history in an instant.
For non-Kepler humans, that was usually what their identification card was for. But it could get lost, stolen or even duplicated. This method was much more secure and would help prevent infiltration. It would also eliminate those embarrassing moments when you accidentally lock yourself out of your house, workplace, or vehicle.
The nanotech implants replaced regular keys, and the ship was already set up for them. It was a measure set up by Nico and was also used on Terminus so that they could keep secure areas secure. Guests got a more traditional card or download to their communications device to serve as a key to their rooms.
Implementation was easy. Everyone had to come by the office over the course of the next month to verify their data and finalize security clearances, so they could just implement it as they arrived and have residents save their identification cards as a backup.
Most departments came up with at least one small improvement to their procedures. The only one that Max noticed hadn't negotiated any new procedures was the bridge staff, who had Admiral Penner standing in the middle of their team, making notes of any suggestions that they had.
A few suggestions were made about rearranging the bridge for more functional positioning, but nobody dared to question her procedures.
Eventually, they would be less terrified of her, but for those who had served in an Infantry unit or had lived on a Reaver Ship their whole life, the Commissar was a terrifying existence, and they had grown up on the stories of other Commissars executing misbehaving children and soldiers on a whim.
It was just a story told to children, in the case of the Reavers, but looking at her didn't convince many people that she wouldn't execute them for acting out, even as grown adults.
Max listened in on their thoughts while she tried injecting a joke into the conversation so that her new crew would relax a little around her. It brought absolute silence to the room as soon as she spoke it, and Max could tell that more than one of the junior bridge staff had actually hidden, thinking that she meant it literally.
[Try joking about little things. Very little things. Joking about feeding them to your pet Klem only makes them think you actually have a pet Klem.] Max mentally reminded her.
[Then give me a better joke. I'm bad at jokes, always have been, and they look like they might wet themselves.] She thought.
[They're talking about scheduling now, so ask them to open this file on the projector. Reaver Code 3 Section 16, paragraph 400. The proper chastisement for tardiness.] Max suggested.
The paragraph read, "Being late for your shift is unacceptable without proper notification or during the previously listed exceptional situations. Should you be late for your shift, the member who covered for you may ask you to cover an equivalent amount of time for them at a later time. Should this inconvenience your superiors, they may ask you to cover the shift in the absent employees uniform and nameplate so they don't have to remember a new name."
The bridge staff was fairly evenly mixed between male and female staff members, with a few gender-neutral combat Cyborgs in the mix. Forcing those who missed their shift to wear someone else's uniform was a recipe for hilarity and disaster.
Who would cover for a late crew member was up to the Admiral or the Bridge Officer on duty, not the friends of the missing crewman, so it could be used as a reward or a punishment, depending on who was missing and who wanted time off later.
The Admiral had them open the relevant passage so that they could memorize it for future reference and then added her own version of a joke in her usual dry voice.
"I would like to add that should any of you fine folks show up late, you will be wearing the uniform of Navigator Johns, who is always happy to have a shift off."
Johns was one of the Combat Cyborgs, and his uniform consisted of a rank badge magnetically locked to his implanted armour.
It took a few seconds for the bridge staff to realize that she had actually made a joke, but the idea of having to work your shift naked except for your rank badge was too funny for them not to laugh. It was just what Admiral Penner needed to get the crew to start to lighten up around her.
It would likely be a pretty good deterrent to having the bridge staff show up late, as well.
"It's good to see you all beginning to relax. We have it easy for the next few days, except for the Communications Officers, who will have a lot of messages to pass through to operations, but that doesn't mean you can slack on attendance. If the ship needs to move or there is a combat situation, it will happen in a matter of seconds, so you need to be here and at your stations during your entire scheduled shift or have someone cover for you while you are on break.
It has been a pleasure to meet you all, and I look forward to getting to know you all better in the future." She finished.
"And feel free to show up a little late, ladies. You will look wonderful in my uniform." Johns added with a laugh, then ducked behind his console as a flurry of pens and a combat boot came flying at his head.
Max smiled as he saw the scene replay in their thoughts, happy to see that his crew was already getting along well enough to toss decorum aside. He never really trusted soldiers who were too by the book and uptight. The ones that knew you well enough to tell you to feth off were the ones who were the most likely to have your back when things went wrong.
He scanned the crew a little longer, not finding anything too wrong, and then moved his thoughts to the Mecha bays and strangely found them abandoned except for a few technicians.
He accessed the cameras, and the area was packed with activity, but it was almost all Androids, which were a rudimentary AI system and not sentient, nor would their programming allow them to become sentient. It seemed that the limits on their computing power were enough to cause his System to not recognize their actions as thought but as computer programs, the same way that Max couldn't sense the destinations of automated drones and such.
But when he focused on his combat-related functions, he could link through their sensors to the target, so he would still be able to provide them with firing solutions in combat, which was a relief. Their entire strategy to use Android Mecha Pilots relied on him being able to influence them with his System Functions in order to bring them up to a standard where they wouldn't take heavy casualties.
Only time would tell if that was going to give him a huge headache when that many Androids were in combat, spread all over space or the surface of a planet.
Chapter 643 643 Crew Suggestions
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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The crew got settled in for the next few days, and the Reavers were forced to be content with viewing the ship's exterior. Terminus had been moved to her custom-designed bay in the lower levels, and establishing order within the ship was well underway.
They were still severely understaffed, but a World Ship wasn't intended to be filled to the brim the moment that it was built. As the name suggested, it was intended to be a travelling world, and the population would grow into it and then stabilize.
For now, that meant that there was a lot of empty space within the ship, frequented only by the automated cleaning drones and an occasional sweep to make sure that the sensors weren't missing anything.
Once the crew knew what they were doing, Absolution would embark on her first proper mission. The Terminus Trading Company had been chosen to cleanse the Klem from the edges of the Trade Group's territory.
With a hundred Battalions of Mecha on board, and the most advanced technology available to humans, there was no Reaver Company better suited to the task, and Max was looking at the proof right now.
[Commander Keres Max, at the request of the Reaver Council, the Terminus Trading Company has been requested for the cleansing of the following planets. . .]
What followed was a list of unpopulated planets, along with directions that they should be taken intact without using extermination-level orbital attacks and destroying their habitable atmosphere. That ruled out most methods of cleansing a planet that was already in the process of being consumed by the Klem, so it made sense that he had been chosen, but it didn't make the fight any less annoying.
The smaller vessels of the fleet had already broken off to take on trade missions, but Max hadn't planned to send them for this work anyhow. The Mecha Pilots of Absolution were all androids, so even if the fight was particularly brutal, it didn't really matter. There would be no loss of life.
Nobody among the Reaver fleet had seen Absolution move under her own power yet, so Max plotted a course to the first target, a three-day trip at Warp 5, and ordered the bridge to set the ship in motion.
"Sheit, feth, sheit. Guys, we're moving NOW." The bridge officer on duty began to shout when the message came through, and Max could sense both the momentary chaos on the bridge, as well as the amusement of Admiral Penner.
She was sitting in her office, right next to the bridge, with her monitor set to watch the crew from various angles so that she could learn what they were like when she wasn't there to intimidate them.
The Bridge Officer got everything in order in under ten seconds and set the announcement that the ship would be going to warp in three minutes after it had moved clear of the gravity wells of the nearby vessels and planet.
In theory, they could just directly accelerate, but it was considered rude and often created navigational issues and a gravitational backlash on nearby objects, so they would move out far enough that they didn't affect anyone with their actions.
Absolution smoothly maneuvered through the crowded shipping lanes and out of the way before activating its Warp field and accelerating so smoothly that not even Max's well-attuned senses noticed that they were moving.
Perhaps it was the size of the vessel, perhaps it was the upgrades that had been made for this generation of vessels, but he could get used to that. Max thought back on the very first time that he had gone to Warp aboard Abraham Kepler and shook his head. If that was the standard that other species were judging humanity by, it was no wonder that they were deemed far too primitive to be included in intergalactic trade.
With three days to prepare, Max went to the Mecha Training simulators to catch up on his practice routines. There were a surprising number of staff members already there when he arrived, despite the fact that none of them were currently assigned to Mecha duties.
"What's this? A bit of sport or training to get certified on a new Mecha?" Max asked the young woman standing next to one of the pods, which was occupied by an equally young man, though Max suspected that they were no younger than he was. They just looked at it due to the influence of the System on his development.
"The virtual reality simulations here are far more advanced than anything that we have seen before, so we wanted to learn a bit more. We both checked out on the Line Mecha at our previous posting, but from what I can tell, Absolution doesn't even have any of them on board." She explained.
"That is not true. There are none in the civilian areas, but there are a large number of the new Samurai pattern Line Mecha in the defence force fleet." Max explained.
"I didn't see any recruitment for the defence fleet. I don't suppose that they're shorthanded, are they?" She asked hopefully.
"At the moment, the entire defence fleet is made up of Android Pilots. The only humans involved are the Drone Pilots. Once the androids are fully battle-tested, I will make a decision on whether their performance requires us to introduce more humans back into the battlefield.
I suspect that a Commander on the ground would likely be best for them, but again, that will be decided later. When we designed Absolution, the goal was to eliminate as many possible casualties during an attack as possible."
The youngster nodded but looked a bit sad. "It's just not the same without real Mecha Pilots. They're the heroes of the ship, you know. It's not the same to have Androids do the job, even if it saves lives."
Max thought about that for a while, then sighed. "You're right. I will see what the roster looks like, and start testing out wing leaders, to see how they interact with the androids. One human for every ten Mecha could still be a lot of casualties, but it would put a face to every single wing of Mecha, and that would solve the issue of morale."
"You're a unique one, aren't you? Not many Commanders would take someone like me seriously. I'm just an entry-level technician, ranked one on the benefits scale, as low as they come in the Terminus Trading Company." The woman joked.
"Broke never did equal stupid. Trust me, I know. Everyone starts at the bottom and works their way up. It's the only way that works. Some folk just move up faster than others. I think everyone knows Nico by now, but you might not know that she went from leaving the Academy as a Pilot to becoming a Mecha Designer to lead researcher and Second in Command of the Company in under two years." Max told her with a wink.
"Don't compare me to her. She's not human. I mean, she's literally not anymore, but also metaphorically. Her mind is totally different than anyone else I have met. We've even got similar Innate Talents, I can debug any software that I come into contact with using my Innate Talent, but the way that she abuses loopholes in her limitations is way beyond anyone I've ever met.
Beta Rank Utility Functions compared to Alpha Ranked utility Functions aren't usually that different. How hers isn't ranked S, I will never know." The tech complained.
"The issue is with Nico, not the Function. I know exactly what you mean. We both started out Alpha Ranked, and her Function just seemed broken compared to mine. If she was still in her own body, who knows what sort of insanity she would be up to by now." Max laughed.
"Oh, I heard about that. It was the talk of the Kepler Empire a while back after that gaming tournament. It feels like just yesterday I was watching the match online, and now I'm standing here with you, in my new uniform, working on an actual World Ship. It's just surreal."
Max gave her a pat on the shoulder and looked toward the other pods.
"You're doing a fine job. I've got to get some training in, but I will work on your suggestion to work some living pilots into the mix for the crew to look up to. I know we've got a bunch of them on the ship. I just don't know how many we can spare since we were so picky with the hiring."
Chapter 644 644 Nostalgia Moment
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The young man had exited his simulation while they were talking, and he stepped out of the pod to speak his piece.
"If you're willing to take younger sorts, I think you will find quite a few. The refugees from the war included a lot of Academy Students and instructors, and they all wanted a sense of stability, so there were a lot of qualified Pilots among those who came along on the spousal allowance.
They're not working right now. Even I'm out of work right now since we have only been here a week, and the first round of staff isn't even used to their jobs yet. I came as her husband, but I'm qualified on the Line Mecha.
If you take her advice and add wing leaders who are human, I would be willing to sign up right away, even if I have to start on the Line Mecha since there isn't an instructor here to check me out on a higher class of Mecha." The young man offered.
"Have you ever been in a Corvette Class Mecha?" Max asked.
"Other than the simulation just now? Never." He sighed.
"Then get back in, and I will show you the ropes. I was going to practice my piloting skills anyhow, and I can do that in a Corvette Class simulator to start with. You will find that it isn't easy to keep up with me since I'm capped out on strength and nearly there on dexterity and agility as well." Max laughed.
"Is that even possible? No wonder you got the first Titan Class Mecha the Reavers produced." The girl asked in awe.
"It's possible but not easy. Care to join us? I will set you up to run the Corvette Class gauntlet test and activate the personal assistant subroutine to help you get used to the controls.
I will apologize in advance if it swears at you, it was made to keep Pilots who were already qualified up to standards in a Special Forces Battalion, not to train rookies, so it's a bit demanding."
That was an understatement, and it was also based on Nico, so trying to show it up simply wasn't going to happen, but it would be a good learning experience for them if it didn't make them cry and give up after only a few runs.
"If we do well enough, will you upgrade our credentials? I know it's a lot to ask as a plus one of a new employee, but you are the only one on the ship who can sign off on an upgrade, other than Nico or the Admiral, and neither of them is a pilot, are they?" He asked.
"Don't let Nico hear you suggest that she doesn't Pilot. She is a monster at the controls, the finest close combat specialist in the Empire, and she pilots Shattered Pride, a fully custom Phalanx Class Super Heavy Mecha. The Admiral is not a Pilot, though. She was an infantry Commissar before I made her the Admiral." Max explained.
"That says a lot about Admiral Penner's personality. But I should likely apologize for underestimating your second in command. We all know her as the mad scientist in the lab, but I forgot that there was more to her background than developing new tech with the Innu." The technician replied.
"Enough chit-chat. Get in the simulators, and let's see what you can do." Max ordered.
Max hopped into the simulator and booted up the Corvette Class Mecha that he would have the other two use for this exercise, then moved them all to the familiar training course that he had qualified on back at the Academy.
"I hope you don't have any traumatic memories of this place. It is the one that I qualified on the Corvette Class Mecha back during my Academy days. I will run the course once to show you the pattern and make it easier for you. Watch what I do, and then repeat it." Max instructed them while they lined up the unfamiliar Mecha at the entrance to their respective courses.
"Sir, might I ask, how long did it take you to qualify after you first started training on the Corvette Class units?" The technician asked.
"I made the standard on my first day at the sticks. I don't expect that of others, though. Not everyone has the particular advantages that I do."
For the sake of their dignity, both potential Pilots simply nodded and accepted his words. If they didn't think about the fact that the Commander could step into a Corvette Class unit and pass the standard with it on his first day, despite still being a student, they wouldn't have to face the gaping chasm in talent between him and themselves.
Max started the timer and stepped into the course, deftly weaving left to avoid the first shots, and destroying the attack drone before moving to the next point of cover, weaving right and staggering a half step to dodge two more shots by throwing off the drones' calculations.
Every shot hit and destroyed the drones while the students watched, and Max walked out to the end of the course in under two minutes.
"Did you watch to see the position of all the drones? They don't change. They are the same for every qualification. You just need to avoid getting shot to ribbons and kill them all, or at least most of them, and you can pass the course with relative ease.
The most important parts of Corvette Class qualifications are to avoid being hit. Now, get out there and show me what you've got."
He had been wrong. The Corvette Class Mecha wasn't capable of moving fast enough for him to actually work out the rust on his skills. He would have to change Mecha later to really give himself a proper assessment, but watching the rookies get annihilated on the test course was far too entertaining for him to stop watching so soon.
"No, you have to avoid getting shot. If they're on your right, don't move right to engage them. For one, you don't have a melee weapon. For two, you are just putting yourself in the line of fire. If you can't get a weapon on the target right away, move behind cover and regroup. There is plenty of time on the clock, but you can't take back a hit to the sensors." Max chastised them as they tried and failed to get past the fourth drone without taking a shot when it popped out of cover on their right flank.
"Yes, Commander. I think I have it this time." The young man replied, then restarted his test so he could try to get past the troublesome drone successfully.
This time he managed to dodge the shot and get into cover, but he was slow to get back out and shoot, so it moved away along its preset route before he could shoot it. He would have to chase it if he wanted to kill it, and he wasn't moving fast enough for that, so he would have to take the miss and move forward.
"Keep practicing. You're getting there, and in a few weeks, I think you could do very well in the Corvette Class Mecha. I will be sure to include your name when the job offers for wing leaders go out." Max encouraged them, then left the simulation for one where he could use a much faster simulated Mecha and really work on his piloting skills without the limitations of a realistic unit.
Chapter 645 645 Lightened Work Load
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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Max was just stepping out of the shower after his workout and training session in the simulators when he got an urgent message from both the Admiral and the Hunter Envoy.
He checked the Admiral's Message first since it was likely about a threat to the ship and nearly threw the data tablet across the room when he saw the contents.
[The target planet is within sensor range now. Eighty percent of the planet is under the Klem infestation's control, and the extraction of resources has begun in earnest. The remaining twenty percent is in an ongoing battle with what appears to be a recently built refugee colony or unoccupied. The design of the crashed vessel on the surface suggests that they are Tapani, and the Communications department has determined that they are attempting to send out a rescue message, but the Klem presence is mostly masking their attempt.]
It couldn't really get worse, so he checked the message from the Hunter Envoy.
[Eighty percent of the planet appears to be covered in the no-tag limit game species known as Klem. This is a courtesy message informing you that there will be a Hunter presence in the world during your cleansing effort. We will endeavour to stay out of your way, but please accept our apologies if our hunting grounds cross.]
That wasn't bad. If the Hunters wanted to kill Klem here, they were more than welcome to join the fight. Max sent the Huntress a map of their initial deployment plan in response since the drops had already been mapped before the extent of the Klem presence had been determined.
The only thing that would change would be which units, or possibly how many of which units, would be sent to each location, so it would be good enough for the Huntress to deploy her own teams without landing right on top of a Mecha Regiment.
[Which drop location will you be at, Commander? The Huntress fleet is highly interested in watching your performance.] She sent it back.
[I will be at this location, on the east side of the human settlement, while my Second in Command will be with this Regiment on the west side of the Colony. They might not be particularly amenable to being rescued by Reavers, but I suspect that in these circumstances, they might not mind as much as usual.]
[Rescue Beacons don't discriminate. You get who you get. I will be sending a team to both of those locations to join your group. The others want a properly verified recording of your prowess in a prolonged battle, and I have seen that your leaders requested that this planet be taken in an inhabitable state.]
Max didn't bother to ask how she knew that. Their communications weren't exactly secure by the Hunter's standards, so their ship likely just automatically decrypted the message when it came in.
There wasn't time to really change much about this deployment, but what he could do we test the limits of his skills.
Max reached out to the Mecha in the hangar bays, all of which were on standby in case there was trouble before they got to their destination, and found that when he tried to link with that many, everything became blurry and indistinct, and he almost immediately got a headache.
So, he moved to Team Leaders, and that cleared the blurriness up some, but the headache remained and was rapidly getting worse.
Moving to only linking his System Function through the four hundred Battalion Commanders made the pressure in his head tolerable, and he was able to properly merge with their targeting data to provide proper firing solutions.
It wasn't perfect, but he could maintain it for an extended battle, and the Super Heavy Mecha could very easily share their targeting data, upgraded by Max, to the rest of the Battalion, so if the leader remained in a support position in the back, as most Thunder Pattern Super Heavy Mecha did, it would be able to assist the entire unit.
It was a bit of a disappointment that he couldn't make Nico's plan work perfectly since so much of the Android's potential rested on his abilities. They were good Pilots without his help, but that was it, just good.
They also lacked a little creativity and generally were incapable of not doing things by the book. Adapting outside of known parameters was one of the greatest advantages that humans had over the Klem, and without that, he suspected that there would be a lot of losses when the Klem adapted to their techniques faster than the Androids could come up with something that would work.
That's when he had a brilliant idea. He couldn't send Mecha Pilots on such short notice, but he would have hundreds of Drone Fighters available, as well as the Pilots of Terminus's Battalion. If he tasked them to make command decisions for the Battalions of Androids on the ground, he could get that edge back without risking any lives.
[All Pilots attached to Terminus Stand By for orders. For this battle, we will be testing a new method of combat organization, where human Pilots will serve as Command Officers for the Android force when it is necessary to adapt and improvise to overcome Klem tactics.
If necessary, you may remote Pilot a unit suited to your qualifications, but your primary duty will be that of Central Command, adapting to the changing battlefield to limit losses among our force.] Max ordered.
The Pilots immediately began to celebrate. Like Max, they hadn't had a good fight in a while, and even if they couldn't be on the surface, getting to lead a Company from above was good enough for them.
Every Pilot had insisted at least once during their career that they could do a better job than Central Command was doing in the sky above them, and this was their chance to prove themselves right. If they could pull this off with minimal casualties, it would prove in all their minds that battle-tested Pilots really were superior Commanders to politically trained Command Officers.
With Terminus in her hangar bay inside Absolution, they had full access to the ship's data with no lag, but it would take them some time to get organized, and Max hadn't set out a schedule for their Command positions yet. He still had a few hours until the first launch, but he was cutting it very close.
Chapter 646 646 Landing
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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From the moment of his decision until the launch, Max had rushed to get everything organized and make sure that the Android's programming would be properly compatible with the assistance of the Pilots up in orbit.
They had confirmed that the Colony was still holding out against the Klem forces, and he had a full drone insertion force coming to clear the landing areas, as well as set up orbits around the planet so that they could have complete coverage for their Pilots although the world lacked a satellite network for them to hack.
It was a comforting, familiar feeling when Max strapped himself into the cockpit of Cleansing Light, which was crouched in the cargo hold of a modified Cutter. Especially once the announcements started.
[All hands prepare for launch. Departure scheduled in 15 seconds.]
The familiar voice made Max smile. Maybe on Absolution, fifteen seconds actually meant what it said, but during his early days aboard Abraham Kepler, it could mean anything from two minutes to right that instant.
Sure enough, fifteen seconds after the announcement, their ship began to move, gently gliding out of the bay. It was a much different experience than a Lander launch, but once the ship began to rumble and shudder through the atmosphere, his mind began to focus on combat again, and Max prepared for battle.
[Drone bombers have cleared your landing zone for insertion. The estimated clear time after bombardment is four minutes. Good luck Commander.] The announcement informed him as the map data went live on Cleansing Light's feed.
The Klem horde had been pushed back, and the defenders were celebrating the unexpected arrival of reinforcements, but the bugs wouldn't be held back for long, and this was a fully developed invasion.
Max could see at least a half dozen behemoths in the crowd already, each larger than his Mecha, and his Battalion of AI Pilots would be outnumbered a hundred to one the moment that they landed.
With thirty seconds to landing, Max checked on Nico, who should be descending right beside him, headed for the other side of the city. She was just as focused as he was, setting out a combat deployment plan for her companions, but Max noticed that she wasn't letting them just do their thing.
She had improved her [Drone Controller] System Function enough that she could override dozens of Mecha at once, but she was using it passively in a similar way that he was using [Unified Force] to coordinate his unit's actions.
The method was different, but the end result was similar.
[Doors will open in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1]
The Cutter wasn't quite on the ground yet, but the Corvette Class Units surged forward the moment that the door opened, accompanied by the Fast Attack Crusaders, and moved to establish a perimeter around the Cutter while the other Mecha exited.
When Cleansing Light stood up outside of the Cutter and added its Disruptors to the barrage of fire that was holding the front lines of the Klem assault back, the Colony's communications net and citizens nearly went crazy in joy. Nobody cared that the Nation they fled from had been at war with the Reavers before being decimated. All that mattered was that there was a Titan Class Mecha here to save them from the Klem.
[Local defence, we will focus on the Eastern and Western fronts, to begin with, and then spread to encircle the Colony. How many souls require extraction?] Max asked.
[In all, there are approximately ten thousand survivors. We will defend as long as we can, but our military resources are very limited, and we have been using farm spec Mecha on the front lines.]
Farm spec usually referred to Mecha of an obsolete design. Or, for nations which didn't use a fully modular chassis, a unit which had seen so much structural damage that it was no longer fit for combat. But they could be stripped of their armour and sold at a discount, then used in place of conventional tractors on frontier worlds, where even farming was a life or death activity for the residents.
[We will have the Cutters hold their position until the encirclement is complete. If you look directly upward of your position, you will see the World Ship class Operations Center Absolution. We will extract you to that vessel as soon as the encirclement is complete and your residents can be safely removed from the surface.] Max informed the voice on the other side of the radio.
[Understood, Commander.]
Max switched his broadcast to the Battalion channel and began to give orders. [Thunder Guns, wide pattern bombardment. Turn the battlefield into an obstacle course for the Klem. Corvette Class units, brace for impact.]
The Klem Warriors were nearly on them, and his Disruptors could only hit so many at once, so Max let the light Mecha do their jobs while he picked a new target. There was a barrel-chested Klem Behemoth that looked like a beetle headed their way, and it was giving him a bad feeling.
If they looked like they contained a lot of innards, they were usually full of either something deadly or even more Klem, so Max focused his left arm's Disruptors on it, then blasted the Behemoth and everything within fifty meters of it into particles.
If it was one of the sorts that could spew acid or plasma at them, it wasn't anymore, but that had enraged the other Klem, and a barrage of spikes was flying his way.
Max cleared them with a burst from the Disruptors and moved forward to meet the charge of the Rippers before they could get to the light Mecha.
His defensive lasers were constantly firing, keeping the Klem Warriors off of Cleansing Light while he advanced, but there seemed to be no end to the tide, with more appearing by the second. Under normal circumstances, the dense mass of Warriors was an effective tactic for the Rippers to make combat uninjured, but Max still had time to cut a half dozen of the larger Klem down before the first one was close enough that he had to switch to melee weapons.
The System decided that Max needed to focus, and adrenaline surged through his body as he drew his sword, joined by the distinctive mental impression of joy that meant that Nico had landed and joined combat on the far side of the city.
[The sun is shining, the air is clear, and it smells of burnt Klem. It's a good day for a war.] Nico thought after her emotions caught his attention, sending Max into combat with the Rippers while wearing a smile on his face.
Indeed, it was a good day for a war.
Chapter 647 647 Behemoths Are Advancing
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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The air shrieked a complaint as the massive blade in the right hand of Cleansing Light was forced in a nearly supersonic arc, bisecting a Ripper and taking the arm off of a second, who had only just barely dodged back fast enough to avoid the same fate.
Max didn't hesitate and followed up with an upward strike and a rapid shift of his feet to give Cleansing Light the mobility to bring the blade back down on the head of a Ripper attempting to bypass him.
The lasers cleared the smaller attackers from his vicinity as the mighty blade cut through the Rippers, keeping their brutally serrated claws away from his light Mecha units.
For the sake of simplicity, Max had chosen the First Battalion to attach himself to, and they were already beginning to spread out to increase the size of their defensive line.
With the initial surge of Warriors mostly cleared, the rest had to run the gauntlet of Thunder Gun fire to get close to the unit, and the First Company was a reinforced unit, with nine Super Heavy Mecha instead of the usual five.
Nico's unit had the same, and he could hear them fighting on the other side of the encampment, but there wasn't much time to spare for that, as the next group of Rippers was already on their way, and Max's target detection had spotted the Behemoth that they were trying to hide within their ranks.
He fired his Disruptor into their ranks and watched in horror as nothing happened. The Disruptor hit a wave of plasma ejected from the Behemoth and dissipated without harming anything.
It was crude but effective, and it stopped him from simply eliminating the escort Klem at a distance while the Behemoth advanced.
[All units, be advised that the Klem has developed countermeasures that are effective against Disruptors.] Max advised the landing force on the surface.
Of the one hundred Battalions aboard Absolution, sixty were on the surface, with forty held in reserve should a particular area need reinforcements or if the ship itself should come under attack.
If the Disruptors could be blocked, he would simply do this the old-fashioned way.
[Fusion Flamers, clear the lines and spread out as much as possible. Minimizing civilian casualties is a Priority two mission parameter.] Max instructed his android companions, bringing instant compliance.
He could get used to that. There was no hesitation or second-guessing, only instant movement, and with his whole unit gaining the benefit of his targeting Functions, very few shots missed their mark, leaving an impressive number of bodies scattered through the shrubs and broken trees of the battlefield.
Max waited until the Rippers and their Behemoth caretaker were close to his position, then activated his thrusters and charged them, sweeping through the air with his blade and firing all six Disruptors once he was in melee range.
It limited their effectiveness, but the beams tore through the Rippers in an instant, turning the bodies to ash so that his blade could have a clear path to the Behemoth.
With a clang that echoed through the colony, alloy met chitin, and the Behemoth raised up to face Max in combat. Its thick front leg, pointed on its end to pierce through even the hardest of targets, was deeply wounded but holding solid as it flashed forward against Max's shield, causing the energy shielding to flare to life while Max spun the enormous Mecha to the side and brought his blade down again, aiming for a joint in the chitin at the shoulder of the front leg.
The Behemoth twisted to avoid the blade but only managed to cause the blow to land on its upper leg, severing the limb above the thick armour of the weaponized lower limb.
Its howl of rage drove the Klem into a frenzy, and Max could see that they were no longer trying to avoid the bombardment and had begun simply rushing the Mecha line, reinforced by tens of thousands of new warriors coming up from holes in the ground.
That was not good. If they had underground means of travel, it would be much harder to track them with drones and satellites, but the data was already fed into the Mecha network, and Max could see the data updates as the Androids and the Pilots advising them worked to adjust to the situation.
Even in his own force, the Fast Attack Crusaders had taken the initiative to leap over most of the battlefield and fill the tunnels with Fusion Flames, halting the wave of attackers for a moment, then leaping back behind the lines before they could be overrun.
The Klem wouldn't allow them to do that very many times, but the first time had given the lines enough of a clearing that they had nearly doubled their coverage area.
Max followed up the attack on the Behemoth's limb with a forward strike, aiming for the wounded area, free of defensive armour, but was forced to use his thrusters to leap free when the Behemoth fired a corrosive liquid at him.
[Incoming drone bombers] The battle radio advised, giving Max ten seconds' warning before they pelted the battlefield around him.
There was no need for him to move, though. Cleansing Light could take a hit or two if needed, but the drones were supremely accurate and would skip a drop that would land too close to him as long as he wasn't moving too far.
As the bombs rained down around them, Max and the Behemoth traded blows, and Max managed to hit it twice more with the Disruptors, tearing large chunks of its belly armour away and leaving it bleeding heavily on the ground when it retreated to make its next attacks.
Klem didn't seem to feel pain, and they would fight to the very end, but that should be close for this Behemoth.
Max pressed his advantage and removed its other front leg at the shoulder, leaving it without its primary melee weapons. The Behemoth didn't care and simply charged with the intent to grab Cleansing Light in its crushing mandibles before the Mecha could get away again.
That put it in just the right position for Max's next strike, and his blade split the creature's head wide open, followed by a blast of the Disruptor that vaporized the creature from the inside, leaving Max standing in a whirlwind of ash.
He took a half second to regroup and double check his target options as the flames of the bombs cleared, only to see two more identical forms rushing at him. The Behemoth had Sisters, and they were not happy.
Chapter 648 648 Learning Their Tactics
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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There was something very wrong with this world. Advanced Behemoths learning tactics to deal with their most modern weapons was not a regular occurrence in a newly colonized Klem world. If anything, it felt more like they had invaded a Klem core world, despite its location right at the edge of human territory.
There was a chance that this was a new tactic by the species, testing their capabilities and the effectiveness of sending more than the same expeditionary fleets to settle new worlds.
It was about to become a nightmare for his forces, though. If Cleansing Light was having issues killing the creatures quickly, they were going to devastate the regular units, who weren't as capable in close combat as he was.
They would have to send multiple Crusader Class units to deal with a creature like this or focus the main weapons of their Super Heavy units on it until it was dead, taking a significant amount of their firepower away from the rest of the battle.
Max considered his options and decided that it would be best to engage both Behemoths at once so his unit wasn't one of many who were going to struggle with the new type of Klem. Cleansing Light was more than capable of defeating these creatures without taking any significant damage, but it wouldn't be particularly quick by Max's standards.
He spared a moment's thought for Nico to see if she was in the same situation and found that a Hunter team had joined Shattered Pride, and their blades had become a deadly blender, mincing and chopping everything that came near them.
The main battle wasn't going any better on her side, but when it came to these particular Klem, it was clear that they held the upper hand.
That was when it dawned on Max. These Klem weren't designed to counter him in particular. They were designed to counter the Cygnus and Kepler Mecha that the Klem had most commonly faced in the past.
None of the standard pattern Mecha Regiments would stand a chance against this force using the last generation's technology. They could block the worst of the incoming attacks, and they would tear the Mecha apart in close combat.
It wasn't much of a relief to know that they were still one step ahead, though. Two-on-one, Max was going to have to be careful not to get hit hard enough to strip away layers of his shield.
He briefly considered flying up and combining the Disruptors for a heavier attack, but it would cause major damage to the area, and the residual energy and fallout wouldn't be good for the colonists who were right behind him.
So, he waited for them to engage him, one moving to each side, as Max shuffled to keep them in position as he looked for an opening to attack.
The first to make a mistake was the Behemoth on his left, which stepped on a shallow tunnel, and instantly dropped five meters, putting it off balance and opening it up for a strike to the joint where its head met the locust-like body.
Max twirled and went to strike when enormous wings opened on its back and threw the Behemoth away from his blade, escaping with only a minor wound.
That wasn't in his calculations. Something that size couldn't possibly fly. Or at least he certainly hoped that it couldn't fly. A forty-meter-tall locust that could fly over defences wasn't exactly something that most human cities were prepared to deal with.
The escape move left the creature's underside open, and Max pressed ahead, focusing three Disruptors together to blast a hole in its chest, which was partially blocked by a spray of what appeared to be plasma fire from the other Behemoth.
The escaping bug was gravely wounded, but before Max could finish it off, he had to turn to parry an incoming flurry of strikes from the serrated front legs of the uninjured partner.
Cleansing Light was the faster of the two by a fair margin, but with one blade and a shield against the two fast-moving legs, Max was only pushing the creature back at first, trying to get into position to finish off the wounded Behemoth before it could heal or escape.
He saw his chance as his opponent charged, and instead of parrying, he tilted his shield forward and let the force of the strike throw him upward, so he could roll across the Behemoth's back and level his Disruptors at the fallen partner, vaporizing its head and leaving him on equal terms with his opponent.
It shrieked in rage as the massive locust died and coated Cleansing Light in plasma fire, causing his shield warnings to light up as the heat stripped away his power output.
Max charged forward out of the attack, aiming for the creature's open mouth. If he could damage the delivery mechanism, he could stop it from igniting that spray and setting him on fire again. But that wasn't happening today. The Behemoth snapped its mandibles together to defend, and his blade only shattered one before a mighty kick drove him away again.
The limitations of the Behemoth were becoming clear now. It was incredibly fast, but only for a short time, and it was already starting to slow down as it ran out of energy. If the Mecha could hold it off for even a few minutes, the creature would exhaust itself, and they could easily finish it off.
Max took advantage of that, circling the side of the creature to attack its more vulnerable hind legs. It couldn't turn fast enough to keep up and lost a limb to his attack before opening its wings to hop away and trying to stomp him to death with its front legs again.
Max stood his ground, letting Cleansing Light take the strike to the shield in its left hand, and then pushed the Behemoth upward, sending a Disruptor blast to the bottom of its head and killing the mighty Klem Behemoth in an instant.
For a second, there was nothing around him, and the battle seemed to pause, with the explosions and the drumming of the Thunder Guns all blurring into one moment of white noise, and then his senses cleared again as the adrenaline surge levelled out, and Max turned to face the rest of the Klem tide.
He knew how to deal with their leaders now, and they could get the colony behind the Mecha lines within the hour, so they could evacuate the civilians and really start to go all out.
Chapter 649 649 Encirclement
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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With the Behemoths taken care of for a moment, Max set his Disruptors to a wide dispersion pattern and began to move north, working to clear the front lines so that his forces could advance and complete the perimeter around the Colony so that their defenders could be released and evacuated.
His troops were making good progress, but Nico's seemed to have stalled for a moment, not gaining any ground, but he could still hear heavy fire from that direction, as well as from the Thunder Guns of his own forces.
[How is it going over there? Have any issues with the Behemoths?] He asked to make sure that there hadn't been any developments that he hadn't picked up on the sensors.
[Tactical pause. We are gathering the Klem into one big cluster for a push.] Nico replied, and Max sighed.
He knew that was half true. She had ordered her people to pause their advance and let the Klem pile up so that she could have a competition with the hunter and then gain a large amount of ground in one push.
Tactically it was annoying to Max since it was hard to track her overall situation, but knowing her, it would be effective, and her forces would catch up to the progress of his own in only a short time.
[Got it. I am pushing North to meet your forces, so you can clear south and meet mine at the other end. I will be monitoring so that we can prepare for the evacuation.] Max replied.
With the Disruptors on wide dispersion, Max was clearing a wide swathe of Klem Warriors as he flew across the battlefield, letting his Mecha chase behind him to consolidate more ground.
They had to stop every few seconds to deal with a Ripper or Spitter who had snuck past Max, but they were still making good progress, but to completely encircle the Colony would spread them out quite a bit and force the Heavy Mecha to fight alone much of the time, with assistance from the more abundant Light Mecha.
He picked up another Behemoth back to his South and stopped the advance to go deal with it before it could cause a wave of losses among his unit. He could sense the desperation from the defenders of the Colony, who were rapidly running out of functional weapons and equipment since they had limited fuel supplies, and the relic Line Mecha that they were using were diesel-burning sorts intended to run off of more easily produced fuel oils that the Colony hadn't had time to produce in large quantities.
Nico had started to move already, though, and her push to the South was taking a lot of the load off of them, as it was drawing the Klem up to meet her and the team of Hunters.
They were having entirely too much fun with their work, but they were also covering a lot of ground now that they had the Klem density up to where they wanted it.
Unlike Cleansing Light, which fought in melee with a sword and shield, the Hunter's Suit used dual blades, and Shattered Pride had a blade in all four of its hands. That made it much more efficient for them to clear densely packed enemies than to chase after them, and the tactic was working exactly as well as Nico had hoped.
The Behemoth that Max was facing was different from the last group, a centipede type that Max was more familiar with from past battles. They were a pain to kill, but they weren't particularly deadly to a Mecha his size. They were better at breaching walls with their immense size than attacking Mecha, so he assumed that the Klem attack plan had been made in advance and didn't include him killing all of the others before they could breach the lines.
The beast wasn't slowing down, though. It had caught the scent of the Colonists, and it was on a single-minded mission to eat them.
It was only when Cleansing Light came within ten metres of the Behemoth that it finally decided to acknowledge his presence and defend itself against his imminent attacks. You could never tell where the brain of this sort of Klem was going to be, so Max had taken the most efficient approach and was lining up his Disruptor to shoot into the Behemoth's mouth and straight down its length, destroying everything it passed.
Unlike the others, it had no way to deal with that attack, and the beam of energy tore its enormous body apart, spraying the battlefield with gore.
The other Klem didn't even seem bothered by it. It seemed that they knew the timing of that creature's arrival was off, so they had factored it out of their decisions and were focusing on trying to breach the lines near the northern edge of the front, where the unit hadn't had time to spread out properly yet.
But, as soon as Max started to move in that direction, another Behemoth appeared from underground just under a kilometre from the southern edge of the front.
"Oh, very sneaky. Trying to bounce me back and forth like a yo-yo." Max chuckled as he turned his back on the Behemoth and began to push northward.
The Locust had appeared too far south this time, and instead of drawing Max down to fight it and away from his unit, it had placed itself in the sights of Nico and the Hunters, who were coming that way at a full-out charge.
Given thirty seconds, they would be on it, and they hadn't had a chance to fight that particular type yet, as far as Max knew. The Hunters, for sure, would appreciate the new target to test themselves against, so he would assist his troops and get the Colonists to safety as fast as possible.
The android units were only a few hundred metres from each other now, and the defenders from the Colony were beginning to fall back into the compound in their battered Line Mecha, letting the Reavers take over. It was close enough to a full encirclement for Max, so he sent the signal to the Cutters to move in and prepare to load.
[Colonists, pack everything that you wish to take into the Cutters, and they will fly you to safety. They will make multiple trips if needed, but it's your call if you want more supplies from the Colony or to get everyone to safety in one flight.] Max informed the civilians as he finished securing the last gap in their lines.
[We appreciate your consideration, Commander. Lives are more important, and supplies can be replaced eventually. We will do our best to get everyone into whatever vessel you send for us.]
There weren't that many colonists left, so the two Cutters that had brought the Mecha Battalions to the surface would be more than sufficient for the task. He just had to hold the position for an hour or two while they packed up and left.
The Klem weren't going to make that easy for him though. They were already regrouping in the distance, according to the aerial scans, and they would push again within the next twenty minutes, with a strength at least as high as what was here when he landed.
Chapter 650 650 Evacuation
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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While Max secured the Northern and Eastern sides of the Colony, the Cutters moved to load all of the residents on board. They hadn't wasted their time during the battle and had everything that they could move already in crates, set to be packed into a cargo hold and taken with them off the planet, should they happen to survive and be rescued.
They hadn't had much here to begin with, as their main Colony had actually been on a different continent from this settlement, which was intended to be a rural farming village, gathering resources to bring to the site where their ship had crash landed.
At first, it seemed like good luck that they had landed on such a suitable planet. It had a breathable atmosphere, which was one of the emergency target requirements for the ship after it was damaged, but that was no guarantee that it would be suitable for growing anything.
This planet had already had life on it, just not human life, and for a few months, they had thought they could just start over without politics and violence from other worlds affecting them, but then the Klem had arrived and put an end to that dream.
This site was the furthest from where the Klem had landed, making it the last holdout when they had taken the planet, and if the Reavers had been even a day later, they wouldn't have survived.
Max waited behind the lines while the Klem regrouped. Taking the time to mark all the important targets would make the battle go much more smoothly and give the Hunters a chance to pick out the challenging targets that they were here for, reducing the number of truly dangerous enemies that the Mecha would have to face.
It was a win all around, but he would have to do something about the tunnels first. They had dug them without anyone noticing, and they got very close to the Colony during the last attack, so if he didn't collapse them, the Klem might just pop up among his troops, and it would be a strategic disaster, no matter how the battle went in the end.
Worse, they could come up inside the Colony and wipe out the Civilians. In fact, that might be what they were waiting for, but Max's sensors didn't detect any seismic activity that would indicate digging or an underground force approaching.
That didn't mean that it didn't exist, only that he couldn't detect it, which made the odds a bit lower.
[Drone Bombers, this is Commander Keres. Please drop shaker charges in formation seventeen Alpha on the marked location.] Max directed and sent the coordinates that he wanted them to bomb up to the Drone Pilots.
The Shaker Charges were meant to break bunkers, and they would do a wonderful job of collapsing tunnels if they managed to hit them. He wasn't the only one requesting them, but the new generation of Drones was more than capable of complying.
Instead of a standard bombing load, they had raw materials and a Printer so that they could make a variety of explosives as needed until their supply was depleted, and then they would return to the ship to restock and be sent back out again.
The Klem turned to look at the sky when the sound of approaching Drone Bombers caught their attention, and they began to fire spikes up at them, trying to hit the falling bombs. They had some limited success, but most of them made their targets, crashing into the ground with a directed charge, and shaking the earth around them, collapsing dozens of tunnels around the Colony and bringing irate Klem to the surface.
As suspected, they had been digging the tunnels forward of the last exits, but that should be on hold now, and the Klem force was preparing to rush at the defenders.
[Incoming Klem imminent. Pick your targets carefully, and all Fast Attack Mecha prepare to create a firewall when the Warriors reach your range.] Max directed.
If he had time, he would like to pile up the bodies and light them on fire, creating a secondary defence, but there just wasn't time yet, and he didn't have the proper tools with him. That was the one advantage of having infantry in your force. They could operate things like bulldozers and trenching tools. With everyone in Mecha, you missed out on those little things.
The ground shook nearly as heavily when the Klem force began to move in unison as when the bombs had been incoming, and then the Thunder Guns started their barrage, blanketing the battlefield in explosions again.
[Commander, give us ten more minutes if possible. We are nearly loaded. There are just a few more important items that we would like to get on board before we leave for your vessel.] The Colony leader informed him.
[We will hold as long as we have to. Just make sure that your people all get on board and off the planet. The next round of attacks might not be compatible with unprotected human life.] Max replied.
Every citizen would understand what that meant. Large explosions would kill with air pressure changes even if they didn't kill you, and the Klem loved to use gasses and toxic liquids that would melt even military alloy and concrete. They definitely didn't want to be here when that sort of fight reached the city, and it was clear that the Mecha couldn't hold such a large perimeter forever.
Max bathed the Northern region of the battlefield in Disruptor blasts, clearing out most of the Klem Warriors in the front lines and giving the unit an extra thirty seconds before engagement, and then moved to the East, where a number of Behemoths had been spotted.
[Commander, the Hunters will take the Locust Behemoths this time. You can have the others.] The Huntress that had been fighting with Nico offered.
There were no suitable targets on their side of the battlefield, only the plasma-spraying beetle types, which were no fun to fight since they just exploded when hit. So they were coming to the East to help Max during this fight, leaving him with only three Behemoths to take care of, at least, that he could see at the moment.
Those were the sorts of odds that he could deal with.
The first Warriors breached the bombardment of the Thunder Guns just as the Huntress and her team of four arrived. They saluted to Cleansing Light as they passed by, and Max ordered the Thunder Guns to clear a path for them so that they could reach their targets without delay, then fell in behind them.
The Androids were getting better by the minute, gaining data on the Klem Tide's combat styles as they went, and as long as nothing changed, they should be able to make significant gains in their combat effectiveness by the end of the day.
It was far better than he had expected, and the general sentiment of the signals that he was receiving was that the Android Pilots were competent enough for the job, with only some clarification and a few suggestions from more experienced Pilots needed to keep the units from being overrun so far.