The drones had reached the surface and were returning to the lower levels, which were turning more and more gruesome as they progressed.
The hallways were immaculate as if nobody had ever set foot on them, but the labs were all full of failed human experiments. Some were inert, some had survived the power outage but couldn't escape their confinement and had starved to death, but all were heavily mutated humans.
[Commander, you don't think that they sent the test subjects to the surface to fight the Klem and ended up giving them material that helped build a new design of Klem, do you?] Major Miller asked.
[I don't know. It is possible that the super soldier project that the base was working on was among the defenders, but the lab shut down months before the distress signal marked the invasion of the planet.
For now, we need to rely on Nico and keep those drones scanning. We need more information.] Max replied.
[We have movement. It looks like the Klem forces are coming up and over.] The Second Battalion reported, and Max's sensors showed that the entire defensive force in the trenches had started moving all at once, using the adapted defensive Klem to block for the forces behind them.
Immediately, the Thunder Guns went to full output, lobbing the shells on a higher trajectory to make it over the front line of shields while the Ion Bombard Arrays of the Super Heavy Mecha began to blast holes in the shields that the lighter Mecha could fire through.
The infantry began to rush underneath the shields, moving forward at an impressive rate of speed that no ordinary human could maintain, much less through the loose rubble of the ruined city. They fired as they went, heedless of the fact that they weren't having any real impact on the Mecha that they were charging toward.
For the most part, they were ignored, and they chose to dig in at a new location, under a hundred meters from the Mecha lines, presumably to become advanced scouts for the next wave of attacks.
With the heavily armored wings of the defensive Klem in front, the attack wave was barely beginning to falter at the hundred-meter mark, while every Mecha was unleashing their firepower at the maximum output, except for the Fusion Flamers of the Fast Attack Mecha, which weren't quite in range yet.
This time, the Klem didn't try anything fancy. They just kept charging forward, getting shredded, and then lit on fire while their comrades charged over their bodies.
[Prepare for close combat.] Max ordered, launching Cleansing Light into the air to join the battle.
There was something strange about the humanoid Klem. It was like the others didn't even see them, running past and over their position heedless of the damage that they were doing to the scouts that had just picked their hiding holes.
Max had every intention of capturing one alive so that he could read its mind, but first, they had to deal with the main force before the Regiment started losing Pilots.
The Drone Fighters were doing their best to eliminate the attackers, but there weren't enough of them to do the job. It was enough that the front line of the Mecha was holding though, blocking the Klem advance while the ranged units behind them blasted away.
This time, the Klem didn't stop at the Mecha. They kept going, using the gaps between Battalions to spread outward in an attempt to surround the Battalions, the more standard strategy that the Regiment was used to.
Being surrounded actually made it easier for them, as it let more Mecha fire without the interference of large metal bodies in front of them, unleashing their fury in a full circle around their positions instead of just inward toward the city.
For over an hour, the Klem kept coming from the ground until the numbers started to dwindle, with a last few specialized Klem coming out last, throwing their lives away when they realized that all was lost.
Even the humanoid Klem had joined the attack near the end, along with the few swarm bugs and noncombat specialized insects, marking their position at the bottom of the hierarchy.
[No signs of live Klem on the surface. Minimal signatures underground, which might be eggs that haven't hatched.] The observation team aboard Terminus reported as the battle came to a conclusion.
[Drone team, what is the situation underground?] Max asked.
[Level 37 has been entered. No more life signs are found. Beginning the search now.] Nico reported.
The drone feeds showed that this level had signs of inhabitants, though, as the floors were dirty, there were empty food wrappers everywhere, and the air quality sensors showed that it would most likely smell foul but was still breathable down there.
As the drones passed the labs, they found most of the doors had been ripped off the hinges, and whatever was inside had long since escaped. There were dozens of bodies of humans in lab coats, mostly freshly deceased, within the last 24 hours at least, but no signs of life or movement.
[I have data from their computers. This lab was shut down for illegal human experimentation, and the team returned here after the invasion halted the investigation of the lab by the authorities.
Their plan was to weaponize the human genome to make the Klem capable of empathy, compassion, and human reasoning. According to the data, they had some success using the Klem Swarm, which they returned to the surface to infect the rest of the swarm two weeks ago.
It looks like this is, or was, a branch of the Human Resistance trying to degrade the Klem into something that they could reason and bargain with.] Nico informed the Command Channel.
[So, what you're saying is that instead of empathy and reason, the Klem latched onto the portions of the virus that represented humanoid forms and attempted to recreate the soldiers that they had faced instead?] Max asked.
[It's circumstantial right now, but yes, that appears to be what happened.] Nico replied while continuing to scan computers to send more and more data back up to Terminus to be analyzed later.
[Just what we needed. Idiotic peaceniks, giving the Klem a headstart on the evolutionary process.] One of the Battalion Commanders sighed while Max searched the battlefield for a surviving humanoid Klem whose mind he could scan.
It didn't look like he would find one, they weren't heavily armored, and they had joined the full frontal assault once the main force began to run out of bodies. Even a grazing hit didn't leave much of them for him to interrogate.
[Troops, spread out, search the area for survivors. If you find a surviving humanoid, bring it to me, kill everything else, then find and destroy the eggs that Terminus suspects are still underground. The data is in your maps.] Max ordered, getting the Battalions up from their defensive positions while the techs from the Cutters made their way forward to recover and repair any damaged or disabled units.
They now had an idea of where the strange humanoid Klem came from, but they didn't know how they had spread across the planet or why the main Klem force hadn't advanced.
