?


    While Max wasn''t really needed for the actual design of most of the new Mechaponents, that didn''t mean that he had nothing to do. Instead, he was focusing on trying to understand the nature of the instability that was guing that region of space.


    It wasn''t normal for so many different forms of technology to not work properly, and Max was certain that there was a reason for it. The reason might be damage from the ancient war, but if he could identify it, he could more urately guess what forms of technology would be an issue in the future.


    Once they knew that, then they would be a step ahead in the generation of the next set of designs, but right now, the damages seemed to be random. Perhaps it was a result of different factions fighting and targeting each others'' strengths, but the thoughts of the Darklings and Arisen had suggested that was not the case.


    Most of the species were too young to have been involved in the battle, so this might be a result of either various types of weapons or something in the nature of the region when everything was destroyed around it.


    Maxyered the data that the Hunters had sent to them over the known data for the Koleska Region and from various locations within the human and Alliance territories and then set theputer to g all the differences so that he could analyze them for possible negative interactions.


    They knew that portals and antimatter explosions were not stable in the Koleska Regions, but they were in the Alliance Territories. The Portals seemed to be stable in the Hunters region, but you couldn''t use a Warp Drive to generate them, as the Warp Drive was unstable.


    Max checked the differences one by one as theputer disyed them and slowly managed to piece together the very basics of what had happened.


    There were lingering energies that didn''t belong to the outside regions of the universe, and they seemed to be what was causing the instability. Since neither of the forces involved in the battle had used the technologies in question, they might have never noticed the damage that they were doing to spatial integrity at the start, but the boundaries that had separated theyers of space were incredibly thin and damaged there, with signs that at some point they had beenpletely breached, letting multipleyers of space interact.


    That was a horrific thought, but Max ran it through theputer with the data that he had.


    [Error: Damage output beyond calcble distance and output.] Theputer informed him.


    There he had it. The mechanism that had triggered the end of everything. Their battle had caused twoyers toe into direct contact, and with the differing universalws between them, they were never meant to coexist in one spot.


    The result had torn everything apart at a distance toorge for theputer to calcte. If he had reduced the detail of his calctions to the sr system scale, he might get a more urate idea, but it really didn''t matter at this point. They had the real thing right in front of them.


    But more importantly, Max found the reason that different portions of the region had different instabilities. The weapon that seemed to have ended the war caused theyers to be unstable, and Subspace, as he hadbelled the boundaries for theputer''s sake, had rippled with aftershocks, causing differentyers to corrupt the region.


    It was the interaction between multipleyers that was causing the issue, and the inability to maintain a Warp Field was a result of theyer they had been to before interacting with real space, or at least most species'' homeyer.


    The more that he thought about the theory, the more questionable it became. Could he really call home ''real space'' when the number ofyers hadn''t been determined? What if they were also a subyer to another group of intelligent species?


    The philosophy could wait forter. At the moment, the more important part is that theputer had calcted a few more technologies which were likely to be unstable here, so Max had to forward that information to the design team before they made more changes to the Mecha.


    They weren''t ones that he personally recognized as part of Mecha development, but with the Innu, plus Max and Uncle Lu, all on the same team, there was no telling what they woulde up with.


    The data was delivered while Max worked on more of the analysis of likely fluctuations near the region they would be arriving at and then moved on to an analysis of the species that they were facing.


    They appeared to be a form of Myceloid but nearly mammalian in structure and highly aggressive. They spoke anguage that the Hunters had already tranted to some extent, showing that they were fairly intelligent and not just hostile beasts, but their weaponry was crude.


    That was countered by their rapid procreation and uncanny durability. They could sustain serious wounds and didn''t seem to feel pain.


    They would bleed out like any other blooded species, but they weren''t slowed at all by the loss of a limb in the meantime, only reduced inbat effectiveness.


    So, targeting the head and chest was the best choice. Large-scale maiming and wounding weapons would be of very little use in this scenario.


    "Good news Nico. The Fusion mer is back on the menu. Data analysis of the region and the enemy suggests that a concentrated burst of intense me is the best way to prevent the enemy from emitting reproductive spores on death, as well as clearing out the ones that are already emitted into the region." Max informed the team.


    "Oh, now we''re talking. We will be in closebat in the jungle, so perhaps two light Disintegrators, plus the two Fusion mers, all mounted on the forearm, will be the best call. Let me check the power output numbers and get back to you."


    The methrower was always a well-received ssic weapon.