@Warpbeast No they were indeed there to intercept the other ship, however they were also there to "welcome" the MC's ship, as stated at an earlier chapter by one of the battle androids. Thing is, Licorice has no way of knowing what the Battle android plans are, so no she cannot make a "better choice" and simply trust the MC to be able to deal with everything, especially because she knows full well what the Battle androids are vapable of acchieving.
"willing to manipulate Dahilia along with Asebi and barely reacting when Asebi died even if there's a chance she's back is bs" The problem with your reasoning is that you're failing to understand what it means for Licorice to be a survivor from the old empire. Her way of thinking is very different from MC and the others. But before I explain that, I'll have to refute the "barely react" statement, she clearly tried to stop Nazuna from destroying Asebi's core and was distressed about the whole ordeal her invitation clearly showed that. Lastly being capable of manipulating people does not make a person evil, especially if she's doing that for what she percieves as being a good reason.
Continuing from where I stopped, Licorice is from a society that built, mantained and used those androids, do you really think she'd be all emotional for seeing an android lose their core, knowing that android owners always keep a backup to prevent losses?
Of course not, she knows full well that Asebi can be "revived", yes it's not a "chance", she's 100% sure of that. That's why she wasn't that altered about the whole thing.
MC had a different reaction because this thing is not normal for him. The same thing would happen if we had the means to revive people, all of a sudden no one would actually feel "anything" from hearing about someone's death. I mean surely people would be pissed at the person who killed their friends, the same way one would be for someone who hurt your friend. But the concept of grieving someone's loss would simply disappear.