When the Board Members and the Envoys from the Alliance arrived, they didn't arrive alone. Along with them was a small army of assistants, number crunchers, and specialists who might have some sort of valuable insight on some topic tonight.
The Alliance was definitely taking this message seriously, and Max wondered what they had heard while he was distracted by the conversations with the other Human factions.
"Welcome, everyone. Now, let's get right to business so that we're not here all night arguing about something going on halfway across the universe.
What is the Alliance's official political response to the situation?" Max asked.
The Innu envoy smiled at him while sipping her coffee. Decaf, Max noted.
"The official response is to honour the deal with the Koleska, but for now, we have no other official obligations to the situation." She explained.
"So, as long as someone goes, it's all good. Do we have an official response from Cygnus or the Reavers yet?" Max asked the Board Members, looking specifically at Nico's father, who was actually present for once.
"We do. It's still in discussions, officially, but the code is clear that we have to send an appropriate response. They have confirmed the decision to move the Anomaly Defence Force forward to the front lines, and they are asking for paid volunteers to send mercenary forces with them." The Elder Tarith replied.
Nico smiled at her father. "And that's where we come in. With the Androids, we have one of the most suitable Mercenary forces in the universe.
If we don't have to worry about the Arisen possessing them or attacking us if they do possess them, then we can go all out without risking lives.
All of the Androids can have their memories backed up at the start of a battle, so the replacement chassis can be updated to continue the logic strings that were developed in previous battles, with the addition of whatever data we could recover from before their destruction."
She had a point. Now that the Arisen were supposedly fighting on the same side as the Koleska and the others, they could deploy the Android Army.
Max was definitely going to ask Nico to put some additional failsafe measures in place in case this was a trap, but it was a good time to make a show of force in the region.
"How much data do you have on the alien species that have assembled?" The Giant Envoy asked.
"A fair bit. The Anomaly Defence force has been sending constant streams. It's all here to study." An adjutant who came in with the Board of Directors explained.
The assembled politicians and soldiers looked over the data for a few minutes in silence, then sighed and looked around at each other.
The scale of the battle was only getting larger, and a lot of the Darkling and Arisen forces had already moved into the Rift, where sensors had problems working properly.
Some of the more aggressive species were with them, but the humans were still in transit since it wasn't safe to use Portals in either region.
"So, we are going to send a thousand Titan Class Mecha and just annihilate anything that comes our way?" The Giant asked after reading the plans.
"Basically, yeah. That's the plan. But we will likely also send a lot of drone fighters and other attack craft to help bolster the numbers.
If they asked for forces from every intelligent species, then a thousand Mecha, no matter what Class, are not going to be nearly enough for the scale of the battle to come.
The biggest problem is that we're not completely clear on what the Great Enemy is. It's not just a regular species; we have gathered that much, but it seems to have a number of species on its side.
We also don't know what species will all be aligned with it. From the incident at the other Anomaly, we can guess that the Myceloids will be among them, but that is only conjecture at this point and is unlikely to make up the majority of their force unless there is a less primitive version of the species somewhere."
The Alliance Envoys understood that quite well. The primitive Myceloids weren't a threat on a high enough level that they would require the Darklings or the Arisen to mobilize anyone, even if they came by the hundreds of billions.
"So, what sort of force is Terminus Trading Company going to send on behalf of the Reavers? It is my understanding that your Android Army is still unique among the human forces, as no other known force has adopted them in large numbers." The Valkia Envoy asked.
Max and Nico shared a look, and then Nico shrugged and sighed. "We're not sure yet. We will have to make something since we don't have all that many to spare at the moment. We have a small force at the fortress planet where the other Anomaly was, and we have the defensive force for Absolution, but we can't send that on an extended deployment when there is an intergalactic threat at large.
We will discuss it tonight and come up with a proper answer tomorrow once we have determined what we can come up with for materials and what the assembled force seems to need."
Until they actually saw the enemy, they would be guessing and sending units that seemed to balance the composition, but there was no guarantee that would be the most efficient use of resources.
"Alright, then we wait for more reports." The Innu Envoy pouted. This was the part of politics that she hated the most. Getting early information but being unable to act on it because too many factors were involved to actually make a decision right away.
There were certainly a lot of reports to go through, mostly from the Koleska and the force in that region, but also the political responses from other leaders and the official responses from the Alliance as various species requested leave to assist.
The Valkia leadership intended to send two Colony Ship class warships to the effort, with zero gravity combat teams aboard, and the Innu requested permission to send a mobile repair shop to the scene to help repair anything that was damaged.
It was a clear and obvious attempt to poach alien technology, and the ship would no doubt be filled with researchers who didn't mind risking their lives for knowledge, but the government was considering letting them go anyhow.
The initial furor had almost died down when one new message changed everything about the Alliance and human responses.
The Klem were gone. The entire species. They hadn't had time to check every planet, but over a thousand worlds had been investigated in the last hour, and none of them showed signs of continued Klem occupation, while in some cases, the entire planet was simply gone, no longer in orbit around its star.
"Crap, do you think whatever is attacking recruited them the same way that it did the Myceloids on the planet we were occupying? There is an anomaly linking the two regions, so it wouldn't be much of a trip to grab them and bring them back." One of the Board members sighed.
"And if that is what happened, it means that our home Galaxy is in the direct threat radius of this battle," Max added.
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