The atmosphere in the barracks where Nico and Max were staying with the majority of the front-line Hunters from the Western Front was one of complete exhaustion. Even though the majority of them never left their posts for the entire shift, operating with precision for over an hour during the attack was a lot like running a marathon while also doing complex trigonometry in your head to calculate your shots.
The exhaustion was more mental than physical for the well-trained Pilots, but it kept the mood subdued even when Huntress Khan came in with bottles of Rum and trays of smoked meat for dinner.
"You already know what I'm going to ask, right?" The Huntress chuckled as she set down their dinner.
"I have a pretty good idea, but go ahead and ask anyhow so we can make it a formal agreement," Max replied with a smile.
"Fine. We would like you to provide another fifteen hundred of those android-piloted Mecha, along with the five hundred currently on the Western Front, to help us secure the camp. It should be enough to let us start pushing out of the base again and cleaning up the mess that we left behind.
When we retreated, we didn't know that the spores could grow into full-grown Myceloids that quickly. Even the Common Myceloids of the Alliance take over a decade to grow that large, and most fungal and plant species are very slow-growing if they are highly intelligent." She added with a sigh.
Nico smiled at her despondent face. "You know, if it weren't for the Anomaly, this would be the greatest hunting planet ever. The enemy is smart, strong, agile, innovative, and capable of improvising quality weapons with no infrastructure. Add to that the fact that they can repopulate in a matter of days, and you have all the makings of a legendary hunting preserve."
"You make an excellent point. I would agree to make this a preserve as well if it didn't lead straight into the Alliance, who are woefully unprepared for anything resembling a sustained conflict.
Can you imagine what would happen if this species got to the main worlds of the Alliance? Half of them would stand as shields to protect the Myceloids from the army even as they were hacked apart from behind, and the other half would run away in fear.
There are precious few species who are even capable of the feats that led them to control galaxies anymore, and even fewer who took their galaxies by force. Almost all of them gained their status and level of advancement because they had a million years or more to do it in peace."
One of the other Huntresses looked over at their conversation and gestured to her wrist device, where she had clearly been holding a text conversation with someone.
"How long will it take to make those other Androids and their Mecha? My Oath Sister is on duty on the North Side right now, and they would love to have some more support." She asked.
The clicking mandibles gave the Huntresses a strange accent when they spoke without their masks on to do the translation for them, but she was more understandable than most, so she must have been practicing her Alliance Common instead of speaking Hunter and letting the mask's translation function do the work.
"The warehouse has fully restocked the bombers, and they're on patrol around the base, so the Androids are already in production. It's best if you send a skilled Huntress with them as a unit commander, but other than that, they should have enough programming for the job. They can also download data files from the others to glean artificial experience, but that never translates as well as a good Commander on the lines." Nico explained.
The Huntress nodded. "By the end of the shift, as long as we're not attacked? I will pass on the message that the first of them is in production now. It will raise morale on the lines.
Not to dismiss the struggles of the Androids, but they can be much more easily replaced than Hunters can."
She wasn't wrong, and the Androids weren't sentient, just a very advanced algorithm, not much different than the NPC characters in advanced Virtual Reality games, who had been given bodies. That limited their learning somewhat, but the ease of production more than made up for it in Max's mind.
That was how most of the Hunters thought of them as well, though some didn't realize the nature and limitations of the Pilots and thought that they were just newly trained humans in the Mecha. They had encountered them more than once in the past and had seen them sleeping in their Mecha when it was too dangerous to come out as well.
That wasn't a pleasant life in a Line Mecha, but you didn't always have an option.
Huntress Khan sent a data file to everyone in the barracks as she poured another round of Rum. Reaver Rum, Max noticed.
"This is the regroup time on the previous attacks. This time, there are more of them that were missed by or outside the Orbital Lance strike, so we won't have as much time to regroup, but the numbers show that we should have six hours.
That will put the start of the battle at the end of the current shift and us on reserve, but if you can, try to be ready to take over early. There is no telling how hard they will hit us next time, and seeing new weapons excites them almost as much as it does Nico."
The Huntresses in the room laughed at the reference, and even Nico herself had to admit that they were right.
Max chose to simply keep silent, as they had no idea just how much these creatures actually loved combat. It wasn't just an instinct, they actually enjoyed it like their favorite hobby. Reminding them of that would only bring down morale when everyone was exhausted, so he slumped back onto the bed behind him and stretched out to get a few hours sleep before the next attack began.
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