[That's our signal. Thunder Guns begin full bombardment with Antimatter munitions. Wide spacing, full pattern coverage. I do not want to see that fleet when you finish.] Max ordered.
Twenty Sets of Thunder Guns began lobbing shells across the expanse of space while the Alliance vessels watched in complete fascination, wondering what the Humans could do against a space-based fleet that could outmaneuver the standard artillery.
The new munitions were a very different thing than the old ones, though, and they would detonate on proximity, so even if the Klem managed to dodge them, they only had to get within the blast radius to deal damage.
The first few Klem ships proved incapable of evading the increased speed of these munitions and took direct hits, allowing the shells to punch through their outer chitin with pure brute force before the antimatter explosion tore them apart.
Klem vessels the size of a Destroyer exploded in an instant, torn to molecule-sized bits by the antimatter blast, and dozens more shells were incoming already.
Max moved above the line of fire to approach the incoming Klem fleet. A shorter range would make it even harder for them to evade and would give him a better chance to intercept retaliation before it came near his shiny new ship.
Absolution didn't have a mark on it, and he intended to keep it that way. He was here to clear the planet and show off their new toys to the Alliance Government ships, not to take damage to his World Ship.
The larger ships spread out as soon as they realized the danger that these new weapons represented, but they couldn't take the pods with them on such a hurried maneuver, and a series of explosions rocked the tightly clustered orbs of biomatter, followed by a second volley that very nearly eliminated them all.
For the first time, Max sensed real rage from the Klem. They always had a sense of urgency and self-preservation when you attacked them, but this was an actual emotion. There was a Klem Queen somewhere in that cluster, and if he got a chance, he might actually be able to read its mind to see what level of intelligence the species was capable of.
Mind-reading systems were rare, so there wasn't much data on the Klem Queens. It would be a great benefit not only to himself but to the whole human fleet to know what they were capable of.
With a bump in and out of Warp, Max was nearly on top of the Klem fleet, which was working to evade the incoming shells and defend one central vessel. It was the one that contained the captured human ship, which seemed curious to Max. He expected that it would be an expendable experiment, but it seemed that their Queen was somewhere inside that infested human ship.
He had seen signs that they were mind-controlling and taking over a human planet in the past, so it might be possible that wasn't the only experiment that they had done with human intelligence. If there was an assimilated human brain in there, it would explain the ship's functions being operational and the strange behaviour of the vessels.
While searching for signs of intelligence with his mind, Cleansing Light was also analyzing every signal that the ships were sending out, trying to determine how well they could communicate with the infestation on the ground. It was well known that they did, but solid data on how far away was scarce.
Perhaps humans had been too timid in the past. Getting up close and personal with a Klem attack fleet was proving to be very valuable for Intelligence Gathering, even if he had to constantly dodge plasma and spike attacks travelling at velocities that would punch through his shielding and Mecha in an instant.
More and more shells were missing the Klem as they desperately fought to evade, but that was no concern to the Androids. They were firing in a suppression pattern, forcing the remaining ships into a location where they could eliminate them once there was nowhere left for them to dodge.
His time was running short to get the data he needed from the Queen's ship unless he was willing to order the troops not to engage it and risk it getting away. It was unlikely that they could successfully and safely capture the vessel without destroying it and even less likely that the Klem would allow such a thing without self-destructing.
But when the fleet was down to less than ten percent of its original strength, he got a break. There was a signal, with a chittering Klem noise transmitting over it, and it was being emitted by the ship's broadcast tower.
He couldn't translate it yet, but he had a Nico for that, or he could ask the Hunters, who were very good with languages, to try it later. His sensors didn't detect any signs of human biomatter left on the ship, it had all been consumed or corrupted, but as he approached, he could sense a vague mental presence.
It was the one that he had sensed rage from earlier, and it was afraid.
[Commander Keres, have you detected what we have? There is a new type of Klem on that ship with emotions. One of our Hunters had an Illithid over for some extracurricular fun, and he sensed it. We want it.] The Huntress that had been left in charge of their ship insisted.
[I want the research data. I can sense its emotions, but I can't understand the language, and it doesn't really seem sentient, but if you research it, the data will be essential to humans.] Max replied.
[Agreed. We are sending a vessel now. Tell your Mecha to stand down on the target until we depart.]
It wasn't the perfect solution, but their agreement with the Hunters clearly allowed them to call dibs on a target when they wanted to hunt, and he hadn't called it first. It felt a bit like being a kid again, calling dibs, but this time, a lot of something was going to die in the process.
Most likely the Klem, but there was no guarantee that the Hunters wouldn't take casualties since they couldn't use their larger Hunter Suits inside a ship sized for humans.
Max sent over the data that he had on the ship now that Cleansing Light had identified it. Both the original layout and what he had detected now, including the likely location of the thought pattern and the locations of all transmission stations which could be sending the signal that he had detected.
[All Mecha, stand down until the Hunters finish their mission. I will contain the Klem fleet alone, for the sake of safety.] Max ordered as the Hunter shuttle left their mothership and headed his way.
[Understood, Commander. Happy Hunting.]
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