Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System

The people aboard Absolution, all ten million of them, were watching the satellite feeds from the battlefield with a mixture of horror and anticipation. They had seen the Commander go into battle, but the energy leaking from his fight was messing with the sensors, and it was impossible to see exactly what was going on down there.

It must not be friendly, given the amount of noise it was generating, but they had no way of telling who was winning. If it was the enemy Energy Beings, they were in serious trouble, even if they had the full firepower of their ship intact.

Which most of them assumed that they did. They weren't military equipment experts, and they weren't privy to most of the communications, so there was no way for them to know that the power output of everything had been capped out by the Myceloid God when it created this place.

But they had seen footage of previous battles in the news, and it had taken dozens of Colony Ships, or entire fleets of a hundred or more Destroyers to eliminate a single one of those creatures before.

They might have that many here on the planet, but being stuck at ground level, they couldn't even use some of their weapons, and very few would be able to target the creatures at all.

Which was what had led to this emergency hearing with the Board of Directors. A thousand community and business leaders were sitting in the hall, waiting for the Board to come out of a closed door meeting and greet them, hopefully with some sort of information that they could use.

The board had a direct link to Max's Mecha feeds, so they could see the battle clearly, though they could only hear part of the banter that was going on, as the rest was mental communication.

They watched as Max finished the fight, then sighed in relief and straightened their outfits to prepare for the public meeting. They hadn't wanted to start it while the fight for their survival was still up in the air, but the people would forgive them for the delay.

The Board of Directors took their seats and the Communications Director, a Reaver woman named Jeanette, with her long grey hair in a mixture of braids and curls that seemed to belong to a much younger woman, stood to start the meeting.

"Welcome everyone. We will start with some good news. The Commander has won his duel with the enemy Commanders, and they have either retreated or been wholly defeated. That returns us to the status quo of expanding our forces through the planet to offset the increasing number of enemies that are gathering.

I know that this situation is not optimal, but I am assured that between our military force and the Alliance vessels that were brought here with us, we have the situation in hand." She began.

A large Valkia in the crowd stepped to the podium to yell back at her. "In hand? Is that what you call this? The entire situation was reset just as we were winning, and we're back at the start, giving them another chance to kill us."

The Director's face remained impassive, and as soon as the man finished his tirade, she answered. "This place was made by the Myceloid Species and their Greater Being. As those of you who have studied the hostile alien species will already know, they live for combat and challenges. They were defeated in the last invasion of the Great Enemy's base, and they were unsatisfied with the outcome.

So, they used their combined power to start the battle over with a slightly changed scenario. At the moment, we do not know if this is randomized or deliberate, but the destroyed base is in a new location, and the positions of the starting forces have changed.

Our production capability was not affected, and we are already sending out troops to strategic locations all over the world. The threat will soon be contained again, and we ask for your patience in the meantime."

The noise in the room increased as she asked them to be patient and let the army work. That wasn't an acceptable answer to any of them. Sitting here helplessly as others determined their fate wasn't the sort of life that any of the species here wanted. If they were that placid about survival, they wouldn't have ended up on Absolution in the first place.

"Surely, there is something that we can do, Directors. We can't continue to just sit here blindly waiting to find out that we're going to die." A man shouted from the upper balcony's podium.

It was an aging Reaver who had come here to take up the operations of a restaurant from his family, who had opened it on impulse as the ship was being built, but couldn't run it properly with the shortage of skilled workers.

He knew how to pilot a Mecha, he could fly a shuttle, fire a rifle, even skin wild animals if they needed to conserve power for weapons production. Doing nothing wasn't in his nature.

Nico's father dismissed the Communications Director from the podium and straightened his coat.

"We do have an answer for those who feel the need to help. Anyone with piloting skills, either factual or virtual, will be provided the opportunity at some point in the battle to help lead drone wings. The innovation of the sentient species, and unconventional thought processes, help make our Android units more effective and prevent the enemy from calculating our drone flight patterns.

Once this meeting is adjourned, we will be taking applications on the ship's employment application site. The most qualified will be contacted first, and then others in four hour segments, rotating through all who are qualified.

In this manner, the civilian population will be able to help the military in this desperate situation, and even the shut in gamers of your family will be able to make you proud."

Ending with a joke seemed to have been the right answer. With the high pay rates on the ship, shut in adult children who simply gamed their lives away while living off their parents' money were becoming a cultural nuisance.