482 482 Change of Heart
The defenders spent most of the day digging the rest of the invaders out of the city, with many of them choosing to surrender rather than die today.
In the forests, the situation was much the same, only with less mercy. Many Omwat Pilots chose to abandon their Mecha and flee into the forests, relying on their stealth technology and hastily discovered hiding spots to keep them safe from the advancing line of Reaver Mecha.
The Mecha were destroyed as the line passed by them, leaving nothing to be recovered if their pilots should return, not even the food and water rations, which the infantry claimed and added to their own stores.
The supplies they had were much better quality, but you never knew when you would need more supplies.
The Infantry hadn’t been with them long, but their senior staff had mostly served with Max before, and they had been chatting with the Commanders of the Regiment to get a feel for how he liked things to be done.
The battle of the bridge, where an undergeared and outclassed unit, led by Max in the Crusader Class Stalwart, had become a Regimental Legend of tenacity and innovation. The story of putting Crusaders in hiding holes to ambush and renovating civilian vehicles with captured heavy weapons was the sort of heroic last stand that all infantry aspired to be in.
One where they lived.
The reminder that they might be stuck on this planet indefinitely, and they only had so many replicated meals available led the Infantry to hoard the Omwat supplies in the flat space of their devices as much as they could without removing the Heavy Weapons and power packs that they had loaded up on before deployment.
The way the battle was going, they had hoped to get to leave this location soon, but there was a whole planet out there, and there was no way to tell how many enemies Mecha remained since it was impossible to know what was actually inside the landers that had made it to the surface.
Every Lander that they located was relayed to planetary defense for recovery so that they could obtain the materials and technology inside to reinforce their own Regiments and deprive the Omwat of the chance to resupply.
[Madam Mary, how are things going down at your end of the line?] Max asked since they weren’t heading for the same city that he was.
[We have advanced scouts in the city now. No signs of infiltration, and we are driving a small force their way to close the trap. But don’t call me Madam. It makes me sound old.] She replied.
[Got it, Lady Tarith. Report any unusual findings and let me know when you are close to the target, so I can have drones reallocated to make up for the lack of firepower at your end of the line.]
Max could almost hear her screaming at him that they didn’t lack any firepower with twenty Super Heavy Mecha at their end of the line, but this end of the line had a Titan Class Mecha waiting for the line to arrive, and that was hard to compete with.
By the time the line came into sight of the cities, the force that they were pushing in front of them had dwindled to under a hundred Mecha from the multiple attempts to break free from the trap and the numerous pilots who had abandoned their Mecha in vain attempts to survive.
After such an intense, though short-lived, battle in the city, which was still clearing out various buildings in case there were stragglers from the infiltration teams, the arrival of the Omwat that the Regiment had trapped was severely anticlimactic.
They didn’t even try to fight when they saw Cleansing Light in the sky in front of them. Instead, they knelt their Mecha on the ground and stepped out with their hands in the air, surrendering to the Reavers.
[Local Defense, capture and disarm the Omwat forces, then lock them in your local prison to await sorting to a long-term facility or return to their homeworld.] Max ordered.
The prisons here were mostly empty and largely for show anyhow, meant to help scare tourists into behaving instead of using the “They Can’t Arrest Us All” logic to justify bad behavior.
The beautiful, gothic architecture of the four-story prison building was enough to assure them that, yes, the locals could, in fact, arrest them all and would if they had to.
The situation was similar on the other end of the line, though they did put up a small fight before realizing that the Reavers had brought so many Super Heavy Mecha to one single location.
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[No significant progress on the other worlds. All are reporting ongoing battles, with no confirmation of progress due to the myriad of forces that flooded them and the lack of coordinated information systems.
The negotiations for the Omwat homeworlds have begun already. The planets have fallen, and the politicians are working out the deal to determine their future.] The Communications officer replied, accompanied by a small data file of relevant communications and data.
Max scanned the reports of their own theater of war for a while and realized that they, too, would be finished soon. Between Terminus Trading Company and the portion of the Tarith Reavers that had landed nearby, they had eliminated six of the fifteen or so Mecha Regiments that had landed on the planet in the last few days.
With the remainder of the Reavers still active and two ships full of Cygnus Mecha, plus the Border Forces that were already in orbit thanks to the meeting, this was not going to be a long battle at all.
No matter how Max looked at it, there really was no kill, quite like overkill.
[Do you see what I see, Commander Keres? We are almost finished here, and a little bird tells me that there are still a few days left in your scheduled birthday celebrations aboard Terminus.] Mary Tarith asked with a laugh.
[Will there be cake?]