The Koleska Commanders returned to their work after dinner, and Max joined Nico on the couch, watching reruns of old movies that neither of them were really paying attention to. Nico was more focused on trying to determine where she had seen that ship, which the others had called the "Knife Ears" before, and Max was parsing her thoughts, trying to gain some new insights.
Max had most of his memories of his past life back, but he didn't recall that ship in any of his memories, but Nico was absolutely certain that she had seen it before. She had certainly seen one like it, as she had used them as a basis for Absolution, and Max had vaguely recognized that style but nothing detailed enough to be that specific ship, which was somehow more sinister looking than Absolution and the other designs of the same scheme.
They ended up falling asleep on the couch without a solid answer and were woken up by the alarms of an incoming attack.
It was about time, they had gone a number of days without an Arisen attack, which was supposedly unusual for the area, but when Max checked the data, he found that the attackers were out of position.
They had arrived precisely where the meeting with the Co-Operative was, outside the system, and they would have to either fly into the solar system or pull their disappearing act again like they did when Max and Nico wanted to ambush their ships.
Max grabbed a flight suit from the closet as he ran for his Mecha with Nico right beside him. They would only need a few seconds to get ready, so even if the Arisen Fleet vanished and appeared in a more appropriate attack position, they would still have time.
As usual, Cleansing Light and Shattered Pride were the first units to launch, but this time there was a unit of recent graduates less than thirty seconds behind them. They would have been on standby in the launch bays, but it was still impressive time to get assembled and get out the door.
[Good work, Pilots. I think that is a new station record for launch times.] Max commended them, knowing that the station would record everything that was said between them and note it when it was time for the Pilots to come up for promotions.
[Thank you, Commander. We have been borrowing the learning devices in our off time and practicing so that we are better than ever.] The leader of the team replied proudly.
The Arisen had spread out three Cruiser-sized ships that were more diamond-shaped and two larger Cubes, but they hadn't started to deploy anything yet. They were just getting close, and Max got the impression that they were confused by the situation. They had arrived at the last location of the signal, but there was nothing there.
Now they had to decide if the Koleska had taken them in or if they had been destroyed outright.
The lack of a Warp signature or a debris field in the area made it more difficult, but it seemed that they didn't really care. The Arisen knew this target, and they were prepared to try to wipe it off the map again with a much larger-than-usual force.
Max unslung the Mass Driver from his back and put his melee weapons away for the moment, using a magnetic lock to hold them to the back of his mecha in case he moved in a hurry.
"Are we ready to party, Nico?" He asked once the weapon was powered up and ready.
He could use it with his Oribtal Lance, just not at the same instant since the holding position for the weapon wasn't compatible with the forearm-mounted lenses for the Lance.
"I say we take the Cube on the right first. The cubes are annoying." Nico offered.
"Got it. Both Mass Drivers into the Cube and I will prepare the Orbital Lance to fire at the position it's likely to reappear at if it vanishes." Max agreed and sent the signal to sync his rifle to Nico's.
The two weapons flashed, and the Warp Fields of the projectiles distorted the space around them, causing the Arisen fleet to scramble defensive measures. The Cube fired out a number of small interceptors, which the Arisen had used in the past to disable the Warp Field on the Mass Driver Rounds, but Nico was ready for them this time and slowed her round by a fraction of a warp factor, putting it behind Max's round, despite firing at the same time, and letting the first round impact the defenders.
The small ship was torn to shreds, and the round was thrown slightly off course, letting Nico's round pass by intact and crash into the ship with a force that put conventional nuclear weapons to shame.
The shield in the area flickered and shattered, and then Max's round made contact with the Cube itself, punching deep into the hull and causing a wave of secondary explosions.
Since it didn't flash out, Max fired the Orbital Lance directly at it, drilling a deep hole in the Cube and causing it to break apart from the inside.
Now there were hundreds of thousands of defenders coming out from the Arisen vessels, but they were down a Cube, and the attack wasn't quite as daunting as it had seemed.
"That was a thing of beauty. I wonder if they can get mad at us for finding ways to constantly blow up their ships or if they're not capable." Nico laughed.
"You might want to dodge that mass of Particle Beams. If I had to guess, they're the big mad right now." Max agreed.
The fact that they had instantly determined that Nico was the problem told Max a lot about their sensor capabilities. Most ships would have had to analyze the data feed for over a minute to determine what had happened to let the projectile pass by at Warp, but they realized it as soon as it happened.
Nico ducked and dodged while Max was completely ignored for the first few seconds while his Orbital Lance recharged. It was a huge tactical error on their part, and Max wondered if they didn't get the combat data from the previous engagements.
If this fleet was dedicated to taking out everywhere that the Co-Operative stopped, they might not have gotten the data from the Koleska offensive group. If they had the data, they would have spread out their War Walkers and not left them together for Max to hit with the Orbital Lance.
Just like this.
The Lance fired, and every War Walker stopped and put up a combined shield, blocking the incoming shot right before Nico detonated a Nuclear tipped Mass Driver round in their midst.
So, they were learning, just not fast enough.
The Koleska defenders were here now, in their semicircle formation, working to partially encircle the Arisen Army force and leave themselves with a shooting gallery, where everything in front of them was a target.
More War Walkers were coming out to replace what Nico blew up, and the heavy weapons fire had started again, but this time dispersed to deal with the entire force.
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