It was just after midnight that night when the alarm sounded to let them know there was an attack within the territory of the Station. This one was a bit different, though. The Arisen had dropped in on an inhabited moon as soon as they had arrived and were cordoning it off while they fought on the surface.
[Commander Yuri, where would you like us to deploy?] Max asked as he prepared Cleansing Light for combat.
[If you can assist the forces on the surface and protect the civilians, I will have the fleet drive back the Arisen warships to strand the fleet on the ground.]
[Understood, Commander. We will do our best to ensure that there are minimal casualties.]
Max sent Nico the coordinates for the location that his System Functions had determined was the best option for their initial entry and then led the way to the outer rim of the solar system, where the moon in question was under attack.
[Do we fight our way through the fleet, or should we ignore them and go straight down to the surface?] Nico questioned as they began the journey.
[The fleet and the students will take the ships in orbit. But we have a better chance of getting down intact, so we will bypass the Arisen blockade this time.] Max decided. Though, after seeing the number of ships surrounding the small planetoid, that might be easier said than done.
They had formed a full grid pattern around the planet to keep the fleet out while they cleared out every living thing from the surface, and they weren't going to just let Max and Nico by without a fight.
[There is a spot where we can push through. The War Walkers are dense there now, but they are moving away to spread into their grid pattern, so we will arrive when everything has its back turned. If we blast through there, we can get to the surface, and then we hope that the fleet holds the breach behind us so we don't take an orbital bombardment.] Nico suggested.
[I see it. Plotting targets now. I will update the fleet on our plan as soon as the targeting solution is confirmed.]
Nico was right. The enemy was still spreading out, with their backs to the two Mecha, when they arrived on the scene. The targeting hit boxes flashed to life as soon as they left Warp Speed, and Mex engaged his thrusters to keep up his speed past the blockade while his defensive lasers burned holes in the closest War Walkers, and Nico turned her heavy munitions on the closest ship.
It seemed that they had caught the ship somewhat by surprise, and the first shell slammed into the Warp Nacelle at the back of the ship, causing a cascading explosion all through the vessel, which would leave it crippled, even if it wasn't fully uninhabitable.
They didn't stop to see how the efforts to save the ship turned out. They just pushed forward and blasted anything that got too close to them as they headed to the surface.
The modifications to the Disruptors were working amazingly well, and the increased rate of fire had a fully cleared path formed in front of them as Cleansing Light broke through the blockade and entered the upper atmosphere.
[Local Defence, this is Cleansing Light. We will be down in two minutes. Please inform your teams not to fire on us.] Max informed the planetary force as they came down.
There were thousands of War Walkers in the area, gathering for an assault on the city, so Max led the way behind them to take what cover he could from some rock spires and set up for the attack.
Not that there was much which could hide a forty-meter-tall Mecha, but when he took a knee, Cleansing Light could mostly hide behind the ruins of an outlying warehouse, which would make it harder for the enemy to target him at the start of the battle.
[They're beginning to turn. Begin firing in 3,2,1]
Max's order brought a palpable sense of joy from Nico, and her Disruptors joined him, tearing apart the front ranks of the War Walkers before they could even adjust their positions.
The Arisen force immediately began to spread out, looking to flank his position, so Max focused fire on the far left side, punching a hole through the chest of a Command Walker, whose spindly arms and legs flopped and collapsed like a discarded marionette as the bone-white war machine fell to the ground with a sound much like clattering bones.
Taking out the leaders seemed to work exceptionally well against the Arisen, and it always caused a few seconds of confusion before they got their act together again.
Dust flew, and shrapnel bounced off the shielding around Cleansing Light as the particle weapons of the War Walkers returned fire, and Max switched his Disruptor back to a dispersed beam to fire three of the six beams as a combined wave, vaporizing a wing of light war walkers near the left flank.
Max got a bad feeling about the retaliation and dropped to the ground just before a missile flew through where his torso had been and decimated the ruins behind him with a massive fireball that expanded up into a mushroom cloud and sent a shockwave racing overhead.
[Did they just fire a nuke at you?] Nico laughed as she blasted a hole in another Command Walker.
[Sensors say that it was a fusion warhead.] Max confirmed before rolling over and firing at the first group of War Walkers to get back to their feet. It seemed that their stabilization systems weren't as strong as Max was used to, and just like their spindly, emaciated appearance suggested, they had been blown over.
The next artillery shell that came Max's way was intercepted by the dispersed pattern of his Disruptor and vaporized in mid-air, but not before its launcher could be hidden again.
They looked similar to the other War Walkers, but Max's System Functions quickly picked out the difference in their pattern and identified them as priority targets for elimination. Even if they rarely fired the nukes, the fact that they could made them the top threat on the battlefield right now.
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