Max felt Nico smile as the Fighters linked shields and charged to provide cover for the wave of War Walkers that were following them in her direction. It was both the best and the most predictable and, therefore worst tactic they could have chosen.
A blind toddler playing a strategy game could have seen through their tactic, so Max charged the Orbital Lance and waited for Nico to approach the linked shield before firing.
The shield shattered just as Nico's blade passed through the point where it used to be to chop apart a Fighter Craft, followed by three more as she spun Shattered Pride with her thrusters. The remainder of the shield faltered as a hole was cut in their formation, and Max took out his Mass Driver to put a round past Nico and into the group of Command Walkers.
She moved to the side, going after the closest enemies, as the round passed through the hole in the shield, making the carefully crafted attack formation of the War Walkers scatter.
Nico broke off to hunt the crescent-shaped planes while Max moved to engage the War Walkers, letting his Disruptors finish charging for another full-force blast.
The War Walkers rotated to minimize their profile from his position and raised solid shields, like the one he carried, a new tactic for the Arisen Army, but not one Max was unfamiliar with.
Max pointed the finger at the unit in the back, the General of this formation, or whatever the Arisen chose to call them. He drew his hand back and across his throat in a decapitating gesture, and the Command Walkers charged with all weapons firing.
[Hey Nico, it looks like they're actually weak to taunting.] Max laughed as he dodged and prepared a wide dispersion blast.
The Command Walkers spread out to avoid being slaughtered in large numbers, and Max switched the firing mode to six individual blasts before picking his targets and eliminating them from existence.
The Arisen Army had gotten wise to the downfall of the higher power blasts in that they created a cooldown time to recharge the capacitors without overheating, and they immediately charged. Max's defensive Lasers flashed as he turned Cleansing Light to knock a pair of blades away, then kicked the War Walker on his right in the stomach, throwing it up above his head before its thrusters could compensate.
Out of position and away from the shelter of his allies' shields, the kicked War Walker was a prime target, and Max simply raised his blade and decapitated the Arisen Commander, then smacked the head toward the leader of this group with the flat of his blade.
That should be enough to get his point across, Max thought.
His Disruptors were recharged again, and as his blade travelled through its path, he moved his shield wide to give a proper angle for his left forearm, where the other three outlets for the Disruptors were mounted, and fired again, eliminating another six Command Walkers.
Cleansing Light was spun around its axis as a solid blow landed on the shield in Max's left hand, assisted by his thrusters to give an extra bit of speed to his next strike. The attacker was backing away to get out of range of retaliation, but not fast enough, and the blade scored a deep furrow through its chest armour before a shot from the Disruptor washed over it and breached the damaged armour.
A high parry sent sparks flying over blue and gold paint, and for an instant, Max was caught in a stalemate and took a shot from a Particle Cannon before he could break free and move away from the next shot.
The Command Walkers were getting much better with the combat style that he had invented so long ago in his past life. It wasn't often that he took a hit, even if it was from a group of enemies working together.
Again Max clashed blades with the War Walker that had managed to pin his blade, but this time he was in a better position, and the thrusters of Cleansing Light overpowered the Command Walker, pushing him backward when their blades met and putting Max in position to unleash a wide pattern attack with his left arm Disruptors while using the unit in melee as a shield against ranged attacks.
He hadn't seen the Arisen shooting through their own units at any point so far, but a few shots still glanced off his shielding, narrowly missing the much more slender Command Walker before Max wiped out a whole wing of Command Walkers at once.
In preparation for the retaliatory attacks, Max broke free from the engagement, driving the Command Walker's blade down in front of its body, then smashing the skull apart with his shield.
The War Walkers were nimble and powerful, but their reaction times were lacking, and they were repeatedly failing to disengage before Max could attack them, despite having all the space they could ever want to hold the battle in.
Max chased down another target, thrusting straight in and then rotating his wrist at the last instant to take both of the Command Walker's arms off at the wrist when it tried to defend its chest.
He briefly considered the fact that this could be viewed as teaching them a seminar in close combat, but they would be learning just as much from Nico wherever she went.
She had vanished around the side of the Pyramid somewhere, possibly looking for an opening in their shields that she could exploit for fun and profit.
[All units, the drop of orbital insertion craft has begun.] The Koleska Command Network informed everyone who was still fighting so that those who weren't tightly engaged could go try to blow them up before they made it to the surface of the planet.
With a ship this large, there would be too many of them for the planetary defence network to deal with, so Max was hoping that Nico was down on that side of the ship. He couldn't see her on his sensors, so she should be hidden by the Pyramid, which meant underneath it somewhere.
But before he could join her, he needed to finish off these Walkers.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢