[Forget saving the city. Eliminate all threats with extreme prejudice.] Max ordered, bringing cheering from the Mecha lines.
No longer did they wait until they had a target in sight. They annihilated the buildings where the enemy might hide or take shelter. They began a carpet bombing pattern with the Thunder Guns that would quickly level everything from them to the trenches, which the Klem had collapsed out of the city's former ring road.
The new Klem infantry, as the Pilots had dubbed them, were undeterred, hiding in the smallest piles of rubble to avoid taking direct fire and spreading out so that they weren't losing too many forces to any single strike.
Their presence confirmed to Max that something unusual had happened beneath the city, but he couldn't say what it was yet, only that it was an entirely new behavior for the species, who seemed to disdain all things human in the past. It was possible that it was only because they couldn't understand or use them, but if that was the limitation, then a force of humanoid Klem who could use rifles marked a dramatic change in their strategy towards increased intelligence and strategy over mass consumption and overwhelming force.
Every nation in the Galaxy would be concerned if the Klem began to strategize on a higher level to go with their invasion forces, which were already an existential crisis to many planets near their borders.
There wasn't any word of strange happenings elsewhere yet, so Max suspected that this world was the testbed for the new strategy. If he could put it down at the source, the Klem could possibly be convinced that the technique was a failure and return to their traditional methods of assimilating planets into their borders.
The Klem infantry began to shoot up at the Drone Fighters, the only threat that they could see from their hiding spots, and Max began to wonder if he had overestimated their intelligence.
They could clearly understand basic targeting, as they were hitting the Drone Fighters' shields with acceptable accuracy for a drafted planetary defense force. Still, they seemed completely unaware that the Mecha could see their weapons sticking up out of the rubble and the flash of the muzzles and energy blasts, which let the Mecha track their hiding spots.
Of course, that happened with planetary defense forces who were given nothing more than a uniform and a firearm when their homeworld came under attack, so it was possible that the Klem lacked battle tactics at the moment, as the humans here hadn't known them.
Given time, they would learn it from battles on other planets, and even against the Terminus Regiment, and then spread the knowledge to the next planet that they invaded, building it further with every successful invasion.
Unlike humans, whose internal organs would take catastrophic damage from being near the explosions of the Thunder Guns shells, the Klem infantry had no such issues, only slowing their rate of fire if they were directly hit.
Their numbers were dropping fast, thanks to Max's enhancements and the combination of Line Mecha and Corvette Class units using their light weapons at a high rate of fire and clearing them from their hiding spots.
They seemed to have done their job, though, and by the time all of the structures that could provide cover between the trench and the Mecha lines were obliterated, the main Klem force had regrouped in the trench that encircled the city.
[Do you think that they might have assimilated a Kepler General? I haven't seen such a marvelous waste of infantry lives to let the heavy units regroup since we boarded Terminus.] Colonel Klinger joked as the guns fell silent, saving ammunition while the Klem army was hidden from easy targeting.
[That's not funny. It's accurate but not funny.] Major Miller complained.
[Can I start bombing things properly now?] Nico asked as the swarm of drones circled the outskirts of the city.
The trench was ten meters across and deep enough to hide a Klem Shredder in it, but it seemed to lack any variance or offsets to stop a blast within the trench from spreading all down its length. A series of attacks from Cleansing Light would be devastating to the assembled forces if they were all still in the open.
[If the Drones currently have a payload of bombs, drop them in the trench and clear it out, let's see what the Klem do when they realize that the trench isn't invulnerable. Their new behaviors could be very important to us during the rest of this mission.] Max ordered.
The Drone team didn't bother to answer. Instead, they sent a wave of Drones toward the center of the city, dropping cluster bombs toward the trench. They were about to detonate when the most curious thing happened. A line of chitin plates raised up from the trench, blocking the majority of the blasts and keeping the occupants of the fortification mostly intact.
[Bombing run failed. Effectiveness under fifteen percent. We are analyzing the data now, but it appears that they have created a new form of winged creature. Not one that can fly, but one that can spread armored wings to defend those below it.] Nico reported from her position aboard Terminus.
[They really are learning. Trench warfare is a big advancement for the Klem, and it looks like they understand both the essential purpose and the largest vulnerabilities of the tactic.
Thunder Guns, once you are resupplied from the Cutters, begin a low rate of fire bombardment of the trenches. Keep the Klem pinned down for now while the main force rests. The Klem have always preferred to attack at night, so I want as many units as possible prepared for a twilight charge.]
That was the best that he could do for now. They had advanced their lines halfway through the city, taking up most of the suburbs, while the Klem now held the central city with a trench line.
The fact that they hadn't tried to escape was intriguing. Normally they would at least attempt to send a large force out of the city to encircle the Mecha, but it looked like they were defending something here. They certainly had at least some underground tunnels dug since the infantry was waiting underground, and they collapsed a whole ring of the city, which wasn't a tactic that a Human city would have prepared.
They were the same species that he had fought before, but this was a totally different battle, and Max was eager to find out just how much the Klem had advanced and how they managed it.
