<h4>Chapter 3606 Opportunities in Krakatoa</h4>


    The expeditionary fleet resumed its journey deeper into the Red Ocean.


    After leaving the Pellysa System, the Magair Middle Zone no longer offered anything interesting to the Golden Skull Alliance.


    A lot of pioneers alreadyid im 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 n 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 aspletely untouched alien settlements.


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


    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, Cbast held a virtual presentation where she exined the most pertinent information and intelligence that the leaders of the Larkinson n should know about.


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


    "The intelligence we gather is notplete and usually gatheredte, so don''t think that this map is an urate representation of what is truly taking ce 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. ording to what we know, Krakatoa fell into the periphery of the nunser civilization."


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


    "It''s a backwater in the eyes of the nunsers. It''s worthwhile enough for the nunsers to nt their g in the region but its wealth and strategic value do not warrant their full attention. The nunsers settled on arge number ofs, but did not popte them to the fullest. This means that the different star systems are still rtively 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 seeded, but even more ship-homes have already departed. There are rtively 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 notparable 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 thetter 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."


    Cbast switched the projection to show a typical untamed 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 particr focus on life-bearings 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 ces 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 ces yet, we can easily fill our cargo holds with exotics and alien loot."


    Ves looked skeptical. "The chance of encountering a 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 enve. 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." Cbast stated.


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


    "Although Krakatoa is only one zone among many, it is still popted by lots of sentient alien races. Some of them are popted by races that were part of the old gcticmunity. 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 irregr forces to handle these neglected alien systems."


    Several mechmanders began to look ufortable. They already had a good guess what pioneers needed to do at these sites.


    Cbast 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 upied. Once we encounter a star system with an alien-popted 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 for human habitation."


    "You mean…"


    The spymaster tapped the projection, causing it to disy 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 asion, 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 coteral damage they inflicted in human space. While therge and destructive machines weren''t always sessful in reducing the damage they dealt to human buildings and infrastructure, at least they tried their best.


    This waspletely 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 copsed on top of them. Mech-gradeser 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 machinespleted a quick and efficient ughter. 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 ughtering 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 gxy? 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 wasfortable 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 ustomed 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 poptions en masse, he understood that it would lead to a lot of conflicting emotions from his subordinates.


    They lived and fought ording to certain ideals, some of which Ves deliberately encouraged. Forcing them to besmirch their honor by engaging in wholesale ughter against defenseless targets would definitely produce a bacsh 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 avable 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, thes usually turned out to be attractive colonization sites as well!


    Since the Larkinson n had no ns to found a colony on a, these extermination missions were much less attractive.


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


    Cbast smoothly moved on to the next type of missions. She tapped the projection in order to disy 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 nebs where outside scans cannot yield a lot of useful data. The MTA wants pioneers to enter these ces and confirm whether they contain anything dangerous enough to pose a threat."


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


    Cbast 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 ofbat 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!