Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System

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.