?


    While Nico was actively working to get the adaptations for pigment modification integrated with the exterior shell of the Mecha as a new coat of paint, the majority of her mind was on the Hunters sensors and trying to find a new intelligent species based on the limited clues that they could pick up,bined with what the shuttle had found, and the sensors on their own ships.


    The chances that there was another species to find were pretty slim, but neither Nico nor the Hunters were willing to give up on the chance that there might be something to find, and Max could sense that almost the entire sensor monitoring team was currently on duty, working extra hours on the chance that they would be the one to get the honours.


    Their team leader had promised them that if they were the ones to find the definitive signals, then they would get a spot with the first team to make contact, and that was a huge honour for the junior Huntresses on the team.]


    So, a whole week passed in intense focus before the adaptive paint waspleted, without a single trace of life in the nearby portions of the universe.


    The Alliance waspletely confused as to the priorities of the Hunters since they weren''t actively attacking the Myceloids anymore, only skirmishing with them from time to time when one side or the other got bored and started a fight.


    Unlike most species, that was a very easy task. If there was a group passing by from either faction, you could simply yell out [Hey, want to fight?] and they would dly oblige.


    The Alliance politicians found the practicepletely barbaric, but when they checked the regtions for interacting with non-Alliance intelligent species, they found that it was perfectly eptable to participate in the cultural traditions of alien species as long as you had the approval of the species in question.


    In this case, there was no doubt that the Myceloids were wholeheartedly on board, and they seemed to be using the stronger Huntresses as a form of testing ritual, where they woulde to pick a non-lethal fight so their bosses could determine where they ranked on the hierarchy.


    Fighting among themselves only let them know where they werepared to their neighbours. But they could challenge the Huntresses to see where they were overall without them taking it as an invasion of their camp or risking bing the boss of a bunch of weaklings if they won.


    They all wanted to be the Boss, but not the Boss of a bunch of pathetic losers.


    Nico looked at the bucket of paint in front of her with pride and then at the shuttle where they had created it.


    "So, what do we paint first? The Mobile Suits seem like an obvious choice; we''ve been using them a lottely, and they''re most Myceloid-sized. If we''re going exploring, they''re the obvious choice." She suggested.


    If it would fit through this smaller anomaly, Max would have said the Cutter, but that wasn''t an option today. That also meant that the Super Heavy Mecha wasn''t an option either since they would need transport unless they were going to rework them another time to have a suitable propulsion system for the region immediately around this.


    That mighteter, but it wasn''t a priority.


    "The mobile suits, and then the Android Army. Once we''ve finished with that, we can start moving out in search of news to secure a foothold on and search for life.


    The Darklings don''t take the entire world most of the time, so there should be some life left. We know that the aliens we met were a colony world, which means there is a homeworld somewhere. It''s only been a few hundred years since thest incident, so there should be someone left. We just haven''t found them yet." Max replied.


    That got everyone in the room excited again. They were beginning to lose hope of finding them, but there really should be the remains of the other colonies around. Unless this species had done something to annoy the Darklings and they had harvested thempletely, with nothing left to restock the worlds for another harvest.


    It didn''t take long for Nico to get enough of the paint created and then order the Androids to update their paint scheme. It wouldn''t bepletely out of the new paint. They would still keep their unit markings in traditional red paint so that they could be quickly identified if in danger or damaged.


    But other than that, they should soon blend into the surroundings, and Nico was quite eager to see how that would work in practice, not just in simtions. If it was a disaster, it was just as quick to paint back to normal, so that wasn''t a primary concern, but the base defenders were getting bored, and they needed some form of entertainment, even if it was just colour-changing Mecha.


    The androids were nearly done with their paint jobs when Nico began to cheer and dance around the room.


    "Alien life found. I got it. Victory is MINE." Sheughed.


    "Awaiting verification." The sensor teamined, bringing silence back to the room as the signal was verified.


    Finally, a voice sighed. "Signal verified and repeated on a 60-second loop. Frequency Modtion signal, using the same protocols as the quarantine array."


    "It''s not a new species, but it is a new full of intelligent life. Look at it this way: you already have a guideline to go by because we have data on their past." Max reminded Nico.


    That didn''t bother her. The right of First Contact meant that she could get off this rock and go exploring. Once the option to call in a massive number of reinforcements and wipe out the Myceloids had been ruled out, she had been itching to find a new way to entertain herself.


    "We can have the shuttle prepared in the morning, and then we will head out to make contact. Huntress Khan, if you would like to pick a team to go with us, we would appreciate it." He added.