Chapter 997 997 What The
Max's fleet continued their charge forward until suddenly, there was a portal in front of them, and it was too late to stop or change course.
[All vessels prepare to drop out of Warp. All hands to battle stations. Brace for impact.] Max ordered as Nico did exactly that.
The fleet came to a sudden stop on the other side of the Portal, only a few tens of thousands of kilometres from the battle and very close to one of the shielded planetoids.
A Darkling ship sent a signal, essentially pinging the location of the planet in their navigation system, and then returned to the battle.
[It looks like we have our assignment. Let's get to work. Supports ships to the back, all Pilots to their Mecha.] Nico cheered.
Their arrival had not gone unnoticed, and tens of thousands of alien attack craft, some looking like ramshackle fighter jets, some in alien designs that they had never seen before, were coming their way from a group of Destroyers that had appeared from one of the strange portals.
[Drones, time to work. Clear us a path to the planet so that we can send the Android Army down.] Max ordered.
Tens of thousands of Drone Fighters launched to intercept the alien attack craft, racing toward the superior numbers with the confidence only an Android piloting a Drone could have.
They formed a wall of alloy and energy barriers, isolating a tunnel in the center to allow the Destroyers to head closer to the planet to deploy their payload.
The maneuver brought more enemies out of the strange portals, and Max decided it was time to show these aliens a taste of human culture.
[Nico, shall we welcome our guests? They seem to be bothering the Destroyers.]
Nico had modified their Titan Class Mecha for the purpose. She had matched the triple Mass Drivers of the Thunder Guns with two of the new light Mass Drivers in a rotating turret configuration and upscaled Ion Cannons on both forearms. The Mecha also carried a sword and shield attached to their backs for close combat and had a defensive laser array mounted to give 360-degree coverage around the Mecha.
The two Titan Class Mecha launched together and used a Portal to appear between the new alien ships and the Destroyers, which were moving into launch position to start dropping landers full of Android Pilots onto the surface.
Max hoped that the strange energy over the planetoid wouldn't stop them, but when the first Ion Cannon shot passed through it, he realized it wasn't a solid barrier but more of a distortion effect, linking two layers of reality together.
The ramshackle-looking alien fighters were the first to attack, and Max noticed that the pilot was a cybernetically augmented Myceloid right before his Ion Destroyer vaporized the smaller interceptor.
His next few shots stopped the aliens from getting near the drop pods, but they were undeterred by the two large Mecha and intended to swarm through.
His area attacks were limited without the Disintegrator, which didn't work against that form of shielding, so Max focused on the larger targets while the Destroyers unleashed their Laser Arrays against the interceptors, filling the space around the planet with streaks of blue light.
[Let the Destroyers deal with that. There are larger targets this way.] Nico cheered, as happy as Max had ever seen her now that she had hundreds of thousands of targets plus an entire planet to attack.
A new alien ship, looking like an uprooted statue of a tree appeared, and it was sending out thousands of acorn-shaped ships nearly large enough to be called Cutters. These ones had some real firepower on their side, and they were doing a decent job of destroying the Drone Fighters and clearing a path for the other interceptors to get to the Destroyers.
[Switching to Mass Driver.] Nico informed him, and the rhythmic thumping of the large Mass Drivers began.
Max smiled at her enthusiasm but decided not to go so overkill and mixed Ion Cannon blasts with bursts from the lighter and faster firing Mass Driver turrets.
When the first of the Nuclear Warheads from Nico's Thunder Guns exploded next to the tree-shaped enemy ship, the entire flow of the battle changed.
Max could sense their panic and horror as the massive detonation shook the vessel right before Max's smaller projectiles tore through rank upon rank of defensive fighters.
The light craft didn't have a shield that could deal with the pure kinetic impact of the projectiles travelling at half the speed of light, and the Mass Driver rounds passed right through them to hit more targets behind them.
That gave the AI on the Colony Ship a great idea, and the next wave of replacement Fighter Drones was equipped with Mass Drivers instead of Laser Arrays as their main weapons.
They couldn't target as many enemies at once, but the penetration effect put the motherships behind them in grave danger as the polyhedral formation closed in around them.
Max noticed at that point that the Narsians had broken off from their formation and were headed for another planetoid. It was a direct path, so they certainly intended to go in that direction, and the ships showed no sign of slowing as they approached.
From all appearances, they were going to land the Colony Ships on the surface and not bother with their usual tactic of invading by portals.
The light Mass Driver cleared a path through the seedling interceptors, and Max armed his Mass Drivers with warp-capable solid projectiles.
At Warp 20, the enemy didn't even have time to react before the first three shells made direct impact with their mothership, tearing massive holes in the armour plating and sending secondary explosions rippling across the length of the ship.
The Valkia ships, still waiting for their opportunity to fight while they sat in defensive positions around the Innu, watched in horror as a Colony Class ship exploded from a single barrage by the Titan Class Mecha, and three more arrived to take its place.
Nico's musical voice broke the radio silence, mocking the enemy.
[They really are slow learners, aren't they? I wonder how many more of those they have?]
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