The Mech Touch

　　A lot of pioneers already laid claim to nearby star systems and other curiosities. Intruding onto their turf would generate a lot of bad will.

　　Although the MTA escort guarded the Larkinson Clan against any human aggression, that did not mean that Ves could use the Simile Halifax as a club against other pioneers. The agreement he made explicitly stated that he could not abuse his current privilege to rob other people!

　　"All of the good stuff in this zone is mostly picked clean anyway." Ves determined. "If I want to obtain anything new and interesting, I'll have to move over to the Krakatoa Middle Zone."

　　The Big Two swept the Krakatoa Middle Zone a lot more recently than the Magair Middle Zone. The area was still fresh enough to include a fair amount of stray alien vessels as well as completely untouched alien settlements.

　　As a result, the more daring and confident second-class pioneers all flocked to this zone so that they could plunder all of the low-hanging fruit while they were still available.

　　If they didn't move in fast enough, they would have to go even deeper into alien territory to obtain their chances!

　　In order to learn more about the area that the expeditionary fleet would soon be entering, Calabast held a virtual presentation where she explained the most pertinent information and intelligence that the leaders of the Larkinson Clan should know about.

　　The virtual version of Arnold scurried about on the deck as Calabast pointed out the evolving hotspots and danger regions on the star map.

　　"The intelligence we gather is not complete and usually gathered late, so don't think that this map is an accurate representation of what is truly taking place in the Krakatoa Zone. There are many more pioneers that either keep their discoveries under wraps or have met an unfortunate end at the hand of powerful aliens." She warned everyone. "What we do know is that Krakatoa has an unusually high presence of nunsers. According to what we know, Krakatoa fell into the periphery of the nunser civilization."

　　"What do you mean by periphery?" Commander Casella Ingvar asked.

　　"It's a backwater in the eyes of the nunsers. It's worthwhile enough for the nunsers to plant their flag in the region but its wealth and strategic value do not warrant their full attention. The nunsers settled on a large number of planets, but did not populate them to the fullest. This means that the different star systems are still relatively pristine."

　　"What happened to the nunsers?" Ves asked.

　　"The Big Two apparently conducted a lightning invasion in order to catch the nunsers off-guard and prevent their ship-homes from lifting off and running away in an instant. Many of these raids succeeded, but even more ship-homes have already departed. There are relatively few living nunsers left in Krakatoa. The living aliens in the zone mostly consist of the smaller and less consequential races. Their threat level is not comparable to the nunsers."

　　Everyone nodded in understanding. Although not all of these aliens were pushovers, they were still a lot more manageable than angry nunser ship-homes! The tech and scale disparity of the latter were simply too great!

　　"So what are human pioneers doing here, exactly? Give us an idea of what we can do here to pass the time."

　　Calabast switched the projection to show a typical untamed planet in the Red Ocean.

　　"First, we can explore and survey the undiscovered or lightly-surveyed star systems. The MTA rewards any pioneer who performs detailed and thorough scans of every corner, with a particular focus on life-bearing planets or those with the potential for terraforming. In order to meet the MTA's standards, we can't perform a handful of cursory long-ranged sweeps. We need to spread out ships and mechs and get close to as many places of note as possible."

　　"This will also be a good opportunity to pick up valuable treasures first." Commander Sendra of the Swordmaidens smirked. "If none of the pioneers have scoured through these places yet, we can easily fill our cargo holds with exotics and alien loot."

　　Ves looked skeptical. "The chance of encountering a planet that contains anything worthwhile should be pretty low."

　　"We can still dream."

　　"There have been a few surprises. There are star systems which look empty at first but may harbor a hidden alien enclave. There are other star systems that contain resources that the aliens considered worthless but are of considerable value to us. Every pioneer has the potential to win the jackpot with each new exploration. That said, the majority of pioneers generally encounter nothing, so don't put your hopes in getting rich in a single trip." Calabast stated.

　　She soon moved on to the second type of activity that pioneers engaged in. The projection switched to a planet that was already populated by an indigenous alien race.

　　"Although Krakatoa is only one zone among many, it is still populated by lots of sentient alien races. Some of them are populated by races that were part of the old galactic community. Others are inhabited by more primitive races that have not managed to conquer their local star system. Whatever the case, the MTA and CFA did not consider them to be threatening enough to divert their warfleets to these sites. The main invasion still must go on. If all of those human warships are assigned to crush every little backwater star system, then the momentum of their invasion will surely stall. It falls upon humanity's irregular forces to handle these neglected alien systems."

　　Several mech commanders began to look uncomfortable. They already had a good guess what pioneers needed to do at these sites.

　　Calabast adopted a grim expression. "Conquest is never pretty. One of the main goals of humanity's expansion into the Red Ocean is to turn all of its livable areas into human colonies. Sometimes, the desired locations are empty, but more often than not they are already occupied. Once we encounter a star system with an alien-populated planet like this, we must first neutralize any threats to our fleets and forces before conducting detailed studies on the alien society in question. Once we have collected a sufficient amount of data for the researchers of the Big Two, we must process the planet for human habitation."

　　"You mean…"

　　The spymaster tapped the projection, causing it to display a typical 'cleansing'. Mechs descended upon weak and under defended alien settlements en masse and began to open fire on as many structures and defenses as possible.

　　On occasion, alien vehicles emerged that sought to defeat the human mechs, but the tech and performance gap was too great to give the native defenders a chance of repelling the invaders!

　　The conclusion of this cleansing operation was never in doubt. Mechs could be extremely destructive when fielded in sufficient numbers.

　　Usually, mechs tried their best to limit the amount of collateral damage they inflicted in human space. While the large and destructive machines weren't always successful in reducing the damage they dealt to human buildings and infrastructure, at least they tried their best.

　　This was completely different. The mechs did not show any restraint. It was the opposite in fact. The ranged mechs fired their weapons in every direction as if they were afraid of missing any structure!

　　Hundreds of thousands of reptilian aliens cried as they died en masse. Structures collapsed on top of them. Mech-grade laser beams directly vaporized their physical forms from existence. Explosions flung their torn bodies hundreds of meters away.

　　While the ranged mechs inflicted the majority of damage, the melee mechs did not want to be left behind.

　　They ran or flew forward with great momentum and swung their weapons at any structure or concentration of alien individuals in sight. Some even utilized specialized digging equipment to tear up the ground and exposed underground shelters to human attacks.

　　It only took an hour for a few hundred mechs to wipe out all alien life signs in a typical medium-sized city. The machines completed a quick and efficient slaughter. They soon received orders to resupply before moving to another alien city to do the job all over again.

　　Suffice to say, the softer and more honorbound Larkinsons did not feel at ease with this assignment.

　　"There is no honor in slaughtering civilians." Commander Melkor frowned. "I'm aware that they're aliens, but soaking our hands with all of their blood will only corrupt us. If you ask me, we should avoid these tasks whenever possible!"

　　Commander Hugin Cinnabar of the Battle Criers shook his head in disapproval. "You're naive if you think we can keep our hands clean. Are you blind to what our race has already done in this dwarf galaxy? It's conquer or be conquered. As fellow humans, we must do our part to strengthen human civilization and strangle any enemies in the cradle."

　　This sparked a brief but contentious discussion. Not every Larkinson was comfortable with the idea of wiping out millions if not billions of alien civilians en masse. It was too inhumane!

　　Ves could understand the rejection from certain Larkinsons. They were raised with the notion that they were honorable soldiers. Others were so accustomed to human norms and principles that they could not easily discard them when they fought against indigenous alien forces.

　　While he had no qualms about wiping out alien populations en masse, he understood that it would lead to a lot of conflicting emotions from his subordinates.

　　They lived and fought according to certain ideals, some of which Ves deliberately encouraged. Forcing them to besmirch their honor by engaging in wholesale slaughter against defenseless targets would definitely produce a backlash even though it was ridiculous for them to harbor any sympathy towards aliens.

　　"I think we should set these types of missions aside." Ves eventually spoke, causing everyone to interrupt their increasingly acrimonious argument. "While I am not blind to the fact that humanity are the aggressors here and that someone will wipe those defenseless aliens out eventually, it doesn't have to be us. There are other opportunities available to us that we should look for instead."

　　There were already plenty of pioneers that were eagerly pursuing these missions. Not only would they be able to plunder a significant amount of alien treasures from their former owners, the planets usually turned out to be attractive colonization sites as well!

　　Since the Larkinson Clan had no plans to found a colony on a planet, these extermination missions were much less attractive.

　　Nobody issued any strong objections to the suggestion that they should skip these activities.

　　Calabast smoothly moved on to the next type of missions. She tapped the projection in order to display certain suspicious areas.

　　"If you are in a more adventurous mood, you can dispatch forces to various special coordinates. Think of exploring hazardous regions or nebulas where outside scans cannot yield a lot of useful data. The MTA wants pioneers to enter these places and confirm whether they contain anything dangerous enough to pose a threat."

　　"That sounds extremely risky." Commander Casella Ingvar frowned. "Who would want to head inside these mystery regions? The chances of suffering an accident must be high!"

　　Calabast nodded in agreement. "That's why the MTA has raised their rewards for these missions. Also note that these are pure scouting missions. It's not our job to handle or eliminate any danger we stumble upon. We only have to send a couple of combat carriers and hope that they get out somehow. If they do, we'll pass on their scanning data to the MTA and leave it to the mechers to sort out the rest."

　　This did not sound attractive either. Ves preferred to keep his entire fleet together. Splitting his forces up to chase after multiple opportunities sounded like a surefire way to get defeated in detail!