[Nico, I have good news and bad news.] Max informed his best friend and second in Command.
[If you say we're going for a peaceful resolution, I am going to hijack Cleansing Light and Orbital Strike something.] Nico replied.
[That's the good news. There is going to be a battle. And even more good news, the Innu Nomads need jobs to pay for their stay, so they will be joining you in a few days.
But the bad news is that you will be remaining on the ship again. We need the drones and their data too much for you to join the battle on the surface.] Max informed her.
[See, I was afraid you would say that, so I have already prepared for such an eventuality. I have upgraded my drone control pod to a full virtual reality simulation. That way, it at least feels like I am in combat.] Nico replied with a sigh.
[I am glad you understand. At least you get new friends to play with while we are all down here risking our lives to find out what the Klem is up to.] Max quipped back to lighten her spirits.
[There is always total destruction. If we drop a firestorm barrage on the planet, we can sort through the ashes to find answers.] Nico suggested, referencing a chemical weapon of mass destruction that bonded with Nitrogen to make the planet's entire atmosphere flammable, burning a whole world to ash in a single day.
[Tempting, but save that idea for after we fail to find answers on our own. It destroys too much evidence.] Max replied, knowing that she wasn't as upset as she sounded.
Max input his battle plan into the computer, letting everyone know what they were doing and setting the drop paths for the Cutters.
First up would be the wave of Drone Fighters to assess the anti-orbital resistance that the planet would offer, as that was never clear with a Klem infestation until they started firing for the first time. Every infestation developed differently as they adapted to the resistance that they faced.
That meant it was possible that this isolated planet might not have much at all for defense against them, but it might also be possible that they were relying on Klem-infested planets near them to send assistance if this was, in fact, a developmental planet that humans had never seen before.
Not much was known about the core of the Klem infestation, so this sort of thing might be normal for them, and the humans hadn't seen it before. They had clearly evolved from something, and they had data to help them adapt to new foes, so there might very well be many more planets like this one, only they were too far from the human-held territory for their presence to have been detected.
The drone fighters were launched, and Max noticed that there were new designs among the fleet of remote-controlled ships, more heavily armed than the usual fleet of fighters and slightly larger than even the ones that they had modified for shuttle duty.
[Testing a new toy, are you Miss Nico?] Max asked sarcastically.
[If I said no, would you believe me? The Klem presence tends to be higher density than Mecha-based targets, so we prepared an experimental new anti-infantry Drone in the labs over the last few days.] Nico replied.
That would help make up for some of what they lacked since Max had no intentions of sending the remaining infantry to the surface. They were doing well in the drone control rooms and logistics roles that they had taken up while waiting to return home.
Though, now that everything had gone insane in the Kepler Empire, he would have to talk to them again and reassess their intentions. He could certainly drop them off at home if they wanted, but that might not be what they intended anymore.
By the time they finished here, they should have had enough time to make a decision one way or another.
The drones had entered the lower atmosphere and were attracting attention from the seemingly human areas that they passed over. Still, there was no resistance at all, not even from the orbital defense weapons that appeared to be intact in the cities.
The drones reached the ruined continent and found the Klem and their first line of resistance, a scattered wall of needle-firing giants stationed around the shores of the continent and attacking the moment that the drones came into range.
[We have our data, gentlemen. Launch the Cutters and prepare for increased resistance when the Klem force notices the size of your vessels. Short approach, come in over the ocean and straight to the destination city. I don't want the Cutters to pass over the other Continents this time.] Max ordered.
The Cutters launched, and Max walked Cleansing Light out of the secure hangar to join the battle. The Titan Class Mecha was capable of dropping straight in like a Supply Pod and using its thrusters to avoid crashing into the planet at Mach 200, and that was exactly what Max was planning.
It would give him three minutes to deal with the heaviest of the resistance around what he had identified as a possible Klem development lab before the Cutters arrived. There were numerous Behemoth Class Klem in the area, larger by far than a Super Heavy Mecha but similarly dangerous.
That wasn't the sort of risk that he wanted his Regiment walking straight into, and it would make a good test of Cleansing Light's combat prowess in a setting where simply annihilating the entire area wasn't an option.
On the surface, the placid mass of Klem going about daily business changed attitudes in a second once it spotted the flaming ball racing toward their location. Hundreds of long-range adapted Klem that used chemical projectiles or energy bursts to attack bombarded the incoming fireball, while the ones adapted to fire rapidly growing spikes off of their bodies waited, recognizing that the fires of rapid entry from orbit would disintegrate their attacks and waste energy.
None of that made a difference to Cleansing Light. The force of the atmosphere, compressed to the point of ignition that was being forced along in front of the Titan Class Mecha, was enough to stop most of the attacks before they even reached the Mecha's shielding.
Max was under three thousand meters from the ground when he fired the retro thrusters, decreasing his speed as rapidly as his system-augmented body could withstand. The force was enough to turn his vision momentarily red as the capillaries in his eyes burst and then were healed by the nanobots in his body, but his control of Cleansing Light never faltered.
The forty-meter-tall samurai-themed Mecha touched down with an explosion of dust and viscera on top of a Klem Behemoth with enough force to create a crater around his location.
"That's one down. Three minutes remaining to clear the area for the others," Max muttered with a smile, enjoying the chaos that his arrival had caused among the Klem.
