Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System

Chapter 654 654 Klem Breeding Ground

With the unit departing to assist their neighbours, Max began to make his way up the river, checking his sensors constantly for signs of danger or traps since this zone that he was entering had not had any attempt to clear it yet.

The river itself was clear of any sign of Klem for the first few hundred meters, as were the surrounding woods, but as he progressed, there were still some signs of pod slime on the riverbed, and finally, the last of the Klem workers that were transporting the precious cargo came up on his sensors.

The lake in front of him appeared to be full of Klem, as were the woods all around it and the air above the forests on the far side.

That explained why the units were having such an easy time in this region. All of the Klem had gathered in one spot. From his position, Max had a very different view of the Klem than the satellites did, and what they had taken as a moderate Klem presence was, in fact, three layers deep and had dozens of Behemoths hidden among the trees.

He didn't see any of the Locust-type Behemoths who had adapted to block the Disruptors, but the pure numbers would make for a good fight.

[Huntress. I have found another very dense cluster if you wish to join me. I will hold my position for two minutes before I engage.] Max informed their allies.

[Understood, Commander. Unfortunately, we are in the middle of a hunt for a group of six Locusts and will not be able to join your joyous hunt. Best of luck taking a suitable trophy.] The Huntress responded.

While disappointing, it was not unexpected. They wouldn't just drop a hunt in order to join another hunt. That made no sense, and they would stand a chance of not getting the killing blow on either target if they switched halfway through.

That meant Max needed to make a proper plan to deal with this infestation before it began to spread out. The flying Klem would make a bombing run difficult, and they were avoiding Orbital Lances, so that was out, but he could still fly up and use a lower output version to clear the area if he needed to.

It seemed like the best idea. There were simply too many of them to be efficiently cleared without using extreme measures or a lot of bombers.

On second thought, he would use both.

[Bomber Squadron requested. Dispatch three wings accompanied by Orbital Interceptors to my location. It will be a full bombardment of a severe Klem infestation and breeding ground, both above and below ground.] Max messaged the Drone Pilots.

[Incoming in forty-five seconds, Commander.]

At the thirty-second mark, Max fired his thrusters to push Cleansing Light into the air and fired the Disruptors on long-range, sustained beam mode to clear out as many of the flying creatures as he could before the bombers arrived.

That sent every Behemoth and Ripper in the area rushing in his direction, but the Bombers were almost on him already, and the river valley was already echoing with the first of the explosions.

A thousand strong, the drones flew overhead, shooting at anything that moved and carpeting the area in Burner Bombs, a crude combination of thermite and napalm that burned extremely hot and stuck to anything that it touched.

Max was sure that the Alliance ships which had arrived after the battle started were suitably horrified by the concept of carpet bombing on this scale, but he would deal with them once he was done here on the surface.

According to the satellite data, there were over fifty Alliance Government ships in orbit over the planet, taking notes and making videos of the Human Military, as they designated the Terminus Trading Company, while Max and his unit cleared an aggressive invasive species from one of their colony worlds.

The bombs were doing a great job of clearing the surface, but Max was still getting underground signals from the Klem, so they had almost certainly dug tunnels to protect their reinforcements.

He really only had one choice to deal with them, and that was a ground-penetrating strike. It had to sink deep into the ground, with a significant explosion that would level all of the tunnels in the region, or it would need to be easily repeatable so that he could make a grid and ensure that all the tunnels collapsed.

He was seriously tempted to use the Antimatter Cannon that Nico had built for him, but an antimatter explosion inside a planet's mantle or lower crust would cause way more damage than it did in space since it would cause a short-term sustained fission reaction that would spread out from the point of impact.

Nuking the planet into oblivion as a side effect wasn't an exactly great military strategy, so instead, he tweaked the settings for his Disruptors Orbital Lance settings.

Normally they would cause a massive explosion on impact and send down a thick beam of energy, but this time, he would concentrate them, cause the explosion two hundred metres underground, and then repeat it thirty-six times to ensure that there were no tunnels in the area that could possibly contain Klem.

When he moved to ten thousand meters in the air to prepare for the attack, Max could hear the concern in the Alliance messages about what sort of insanity he was going to attempt. The Envoys knew about Orbital Lances, but the majority of Government forces did not.

The sheltered nature of most of the visiting bureaucrats was almost funny in a twisted way. But it was pleasant to think that one day, humanity might enjoy such security that they could forget about constant threats from aggressive species.

This would be their first exposure to the advanced weapons of a Titan Class Mecha, and for once, it might actually look less dangerous than usual. The fact that he was going to do it three dozen times might not set their minds at ease, but the destruction should be limited to just this one grid location and largely underground.

The settings were complete, and [Optimize] had determined that they couldn't get any better for his purpose, so Max began his bombardment, shaking the ground all through the region and setting off seismic sensors on the Mecha in nearby zones.

By the twelfth attack, it was clear that the impact had destroyed the tunnels, and the whole region had sunk dozens of meters, but there were still Klem life signs down there somewhere.

Max paused to pinpoint them with his sensors, just in case they were at a depth that he hadn't calculated for, but they were above ground.

The lake had sheltered a number of pods from the bombing run, despite having most of its water boiled off. One surface configuration Orbital Lance took care of that as well as any lingering Klem presence in the region and silenced the Alliance communications for almost an entire minute while their researchers worked to process what exactly had happened here.

Max hovered above the destroyed forest and scanned the sensor logs for more similar regions, which might be hiding massive Klem breeding grounds in a way that the orbital scans wouldn't detect.

The most likely option was a mountain range a thousand kilometres away and a volcanic region on another continent. He would leave the second for the units assigned to the area, but he did note the possibility that the scans might have underestimated the defences in the region before he took off for the mountain range in the hope of finding another Klem nursery.