Chapter 970 970 Never Fight In A Basement
"Are we seriously going to go down into the tunnels to hunt the warriors? I like a good hunt as much as anyone, but fighting underground is always a high-risk endeavour, and even more so when you're the one on the offence in tunnels that your enemy has created and prepared for an invasion." One of the away team members asked.
She had a good point. There was a saying among the Kepler infantry units: "Never fight in a basement." It was good advice, as a basement only had one way in and no way out if someone was attacking from above.
The sentiment extended well to fighting in tunnels since the enemy could circle behind you and leave you trapped. But that wasn't a real concern for Nico. If there were enemies on every side, it just meant that she could attack any direction that she wanted.
Completely clearing the tunnels wasn't going to happen, but they could at least reduce the numbers that they had drawn to this location before they overran the city, and his team caused an unintentional disaster.
"It will be fine. We're not going to go in a cluster. The Androids will secure the surface entry while we head below. Then, we will leave a member at each intersection until we've fanned out as much as possible.
Once we have cleared that much, we will return to the surface and check the maps to see if there are other networks or if all the tunnels are interlinked.
The ship's scans can't seem to penetrate the ground in this region due to some sort of interference, so we have to do this the old-fashioned way." Khan informed her.
That was somewhat lower risk than what the Huntress had been thinking. Only the last few, the most senior of them, would have to fight alone as they went to the last intersections. The others would only be holding a point and fighting against surprise attacks.
It could still be a giant mess, but if the leader thought that they could do this without casualties, which was the requirement for everything they did here without authorization, then she would trust Huntress Khan's judgement.
Max kept tabs on the Androids while Nico worked on modifying the Mobile Suits for their purpose. Other than the Disintegrators, which had been ditched due to ineffectiveness, she had also switched out the swords.
They were going to fight in close quarters, so a long blade was a bad idea and couldn't be properly utilized. Instead, she had equipped each hand with a three-clawed gauntlet.
It was made of the same strange material that the Demonic creatures' blades had been. It was sharp enough to cut through the armour of these enemies, and it didn't need any sort of power input but could be covered in an energy barrier for durability.
That would be a very different fighting style than Max had used recently, but it shouldn't be too hard to adapt to fighting with clawed gloves. It was a lot like boxing, in a way, and the weapons were very intuitive but effective.
[Here, add this to the suits, but you must never tell anyone else that I provided this to you.] Khan messaged Nico and Max as the suits were nearly finished.
What she sent was the schematic for a basic version of the Hunters' personal cloaking device, an optical camouflage that made them nearly invisible when standing still on a hunt and very hard to spot while moving. Combined with the new paint, they would be able to move through dark tunnels like ghosts, appearing only to slaughter.
It was a longstanding Hunter technology and well known to the Alliance but considered a prohibited item due to the ease with which it could be used in crime.
If the humans wanted something similar, they would have to make their own, and the Hunters were supposed to be prohibited from helping them along the way.
But what the Alliance didn't know couldn't hurt them, and this was going to be an epic hunt below ground for highly skilled and intelligent combatants.
A few more minutes passed before the suits began to appear in the room, each labelled with the wearer's name and custom fit.
"They've got everything that you could ask for, right down to neural linked flat space compartments, so you can just think your standard trigger word and bring out whatever you have stored in there for the mission.
The space is standard for a mobile suit, two square metres, but that should be enough, I hope." Nico informed the room.
Each of the Hunters considered what she would bring with her, other than what was in her personal storage space, and began to suit up in the new Mobile Suits.
"Oh, this is interesting. I like the folding wings. These should fly really well. That might not help us much now, but the leading edge of the wing is bladed, and so are the elbows, so I think that I can find a way to make them work in combat." Huntress Khan noted.
"As a genuine Nico Tarith design, they are fully weaponized. The knee pads are also designed with a strategic ridge for maximum impact damage, and the soles of the boots have embedded blades that can be deployed on command.
I considered making the helmets have biting jaws, but that would mess with the sensor positions, so we went with the blank masks that you all prefer. If the enemy is going to fear us, they should at least know who to look for next time." Nico laughed.
Khan equipped her new armour and placed the helmet on her head.
"You're right. It does feel better to know that they will be looking at the Hunter Mask. That design has remained with our people for a hundred thousand years, and not having it visible is a strange feeling.
Nearly as strange as looking around the room and seeing all these suits adapt to their surroundings. The new paint coating is much better at adapting its colour when it is on the curved surfaces of the Mobile Suit than the angular armour of the Mecha."
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