[I will send Drones to your location to guard the road. Inform everyone to keep to the main highway and my forces should be able to protect them from the worst of the dangers.] Max informed the General, right before ordering the Cutter to create four shuttles full of drones, one large to a hundred smaller ones, to guard the evacuation.
The team loaded them in the orbital shuttles designed for twenty-person insertion teams, and sent them out within minutes, shocking the Golden Legion forces when they saw the marker for the shuttles appear on the drones' data feed.
"How much military force do you have stockpiled in that Cutter of yours?" The General asked as the four shuttles spread out down the road and prepared to defend the refugees who were fleeing from the nuclear fallout.
As soon as the drones were dropped and moving to protect the whole fifty kilometres, the shuttles moved to the stricken city to begin the cleanup effort. High density materials were optimal for the Replicator system, and the shuttles were happy to collect as much of it as they could from the damaged nuclear power station.
They weren't equipped with the tools to clean up the whole disaster, but they could at least steal the exposed core and turn it into something less dangerous.
Or perhaps more dangerous, depending on how you looked at it, since they turned the core, along with the most highly irradiated parts of the building itself, into more crab drones to scour the city and look for survivors.
At first, the dignitaries didn't notice what they were doing, only that the shuttles had dropped the drones and moved to the city, but then lingered there. It was only when someone zoomed in and noticed that the number of green dots representing friendly troops was multiplying that they realized something strange was happening.
"Were there a large number of soldiers rescued from a bunker somewhere?" The General asked as he inspected the data.
"Not that we have seen reported to us. The shuttles are making more drones to stabilize the situation, and they should be most of the new dots that are appearing. The healthy and uninjured are mostly evacuated already. As far as I know, they didn't even have an opportunity to issue a shelter in place order before the incident." Nico explained.
"So, your shuttles are just making more drone soldiers to assist us with the evacuation? Thank you." The General replied with a genuine smile on his face.
"They will also help stabilize the region once they are finished with the escort mission. They are still combat capable, so once the survivors are accounted for, we will have them look for the enemy units that diverted when they realized that this battlefield was unsafe." Max added.
"Aren't they going to be heavily irradiated?" The General asked, while the other dignitaries watched the interaction with rapt attention.
"Of course, but it won't be enough to affect their functions. The computer system is shielded, and their communications equipment can deal with irradiation. They won't be any less reliable, and I'm not particularly bothered if the enemy receives a bit of radiation as they fight.
If it's an environmental issue, we can send a shuttle after the battle to clean up any irradiated rubble that is left behind." Max offered.
"That would be very kind, thank you. We will have enough trouble cleaning up that city without drones hundreds of kilometres away spreading the disaster."
Of course, if they sent a shuttle there with a Terraforming Device, they could decontaminate the drones easily enough, even if the small vessel wouldn't have the power output to do a full terraforming of the city in anything resembling a reasonable timeframe.
But that wasn't a priority, and it would be better to save their materials stockpile for more important issues. Max didn't know how the Greater Energy Being would react to him terraforming her planet, or using local materials in their replicator, and he wasn't going to risk angering her when she was making it much easier for him to fight the invaders.
"Red Dots." Someone at the table shouted, causing Nico to change the camera view to a visual one from a bomber overhead.
They were hovering, and painted with adaptive camouflage, so the chances that anything would spot them from the surface was quite low, allowing them to remain steady enough to get quality footage of a column of filthy aliens in partial armour that left their distended bellies and hands exposed.
As an armour design, it was absolutely terrible, but their culture valued mass consumption, and the distended belly was a sign that they had managed to capture prey and eat well recently. Max mentally recoiled in disgust as he read their minds, but the battle had already begun, and the crabs that the aliens thought would make good eating were busily pelting their shielding with laser rifles.
"What are those things?" One of the Golden Legion dignitaries asked in horror as the bloated creatures charged at the road, firing their projectile rifles and screeching a shrill battle call that the drones recorded as a possible sign of injury until they had time to analyze it.
The aliens were quick to learn that the drones were no easy meal, both because they were armed, and because they were highly aggressive and armoured.
Once the attacking wave reached the crabs, they realized that simply crushing them, as they had intended, was not going to happen. The crabs leaped at them, clasping them tight and attacking their exposed bellies with vicious pointed legs.
The fat alien's shielding fell in seconds against the combination of physical attack and the short range fusion torch that the drones were equipped with as a repair tool. Once the energy barrier was down, they had no chance.
They weren't strong enough to dislodge the drones, and the legs tore apart their insides in seconds before the crabs burrowed inside to ensure that no vital organs survived.
That was a Nico addition to the programming. If they couldn't identify the target's vitals, they were programmed to mutilate the body until they determined that there was a less than one percent chance of survival.
"There we go. The first wave of attacks on the convoy are taken care of, and we didn't lose a single drone." Nico informed the dignitaries proudly.
The fact that most of them were now covered in drying gore never crossed her mind.
