769 769 First Skirmish
The Arisen Army deployment shifted to form a semicircle around them from the front, allowing it to attack from the top and bottom as well but leaving a large gap behind the front line.
“You go up; I will go down,” Nico commented, then flashed through a portal toward Max’s feet and outside the attempted encirclement.
Max did the same in the opposite direction, and the semicircle collapsed, splitting in half and leaving themselves clustered for a wide dispersion of Max’s main weapons, which eliminated dozens of ten-meter class War Walkers in an instant.
With the pattern cleared out to some extent, it was easier to dodge the attacks, and Max began to pick off the Phalanx Class units, around twenty-five meters tall, which represented the greatest threat to his shielding.
A direct hit from them would put a serious dent in his energy storage, and two had nearly collapsed his shielding, so he couldn’t underestimate them at all, or he would be in trouble.
An egg-shaped vessel that somewhat reminded Max of an elongated Klem pod flashed in from Warp Speed and deployed a full regiment of Koleska Warframes at their location, right between the two halves of the Arisen position, and the attackers began to immediately retreat.
The Koleska held their position as the Arisen War Walkers fled, which Max took as a signal not to pursue them into the thick of the battle, but he did notice that it left a few of their transport ships vulnerable without an escort.
“Nico, send them a single, small Antimatter round.” Max directed.
He would take the opportunity to see how their weapons measured up against what the Koleska were using and how they dealt with the Arisen vessels since he had learned the capability of the War Walkers.
A defensive laser from the ship flashed, destroying the round before it could reach the shielding, but the resulting antimatter explosion rocked this entire side of the battlefield, passing like a wave through water in the thin gasses that made up open space here.
“Alright, maybe those aren’t the best choice of weapons. It looks like the Arisen Army is retreating, though.” Max chuckled at the aftermath of the attack, which would have been much worse had the round actually activated.
It wasn’t quite as damaging as activating it in an atmosphere, but there was a lot of residual damage, which would have to be avoided as much as possible. He would send the data back to the Moon Base so that Uncle Lu could tailor the Mecha to the situation.
[Question from Koleska Command. What was that last attack?] Yuri asked again.
[A human anti-ship weapon using antimatter fusion technology. The result was unexpected due to the nature of the region not being devoid of matter.] Max explained.
[Koleska Command asks that you do not use that weapon during an ongoing battle for Friendly Fire prevention reasons.]
[Understood Koleska Command, we apologize for the inconvenience.] Max replied as he sensed the amusement of the nearby Koleska troops, which could also hear the message on the open channels.
It might have been a sketchy result, but it made the enemy retreat long before the battle would have normally ended, and that was a good result in the minds of any soldier.
Once the War Walkers were in their ships, the Arisen Army went to warp and moved away from the battlefield, returning to whatever their nearest stronghold was, while the Koleska returned to the Space Station.
“Ah, that was just right for breakfast, a nice light skirmish.” Nico joked while Max checked Cleansing Light for damages. There were a couple of overloaded capacitors, but they were self-resetting and would be fine as soon as they had cooled off. Other than that, he had taken no damage during the battle.
“How did Shattered Pride fare?” He asked to make sure that Nico was good to go.
“One blown hydraulic line, but I’ve already used my System Functions to repair it and top off the fluid. I’m back at one hundred percent.”
“Perfect, let’s go meet our hosts.”
They both opened Portals back to the ship and then paused while the Koleska troops stood down. You could never tell what was coming through a portal, so for safety’s sake, they usually didn’t open them near populated areas.
Max made a mental note of the response of the troops so that he would remember not to open the Portal so close next time and then return to Santa Maria.
[Commander of the Humans, the Koleska leaders request a meeting in the common area of the station when you are available.] The radio operator informed him.
[We will be there in thirty minutes.] Max replied, with a time stamp indicator to show them how long a minute was in his language.
Once they were back aboard and had time for a quick shower and a change of clothes into their Reaver best, Max and Nico headed for the common areas of the station. Nico made a point of politely greeting everyone that stared at the two humans, even though they surely didn’t understand her.
Max was beginning to get the hang of the language. He had used Nico’s skill to memorize the text version of the language translation, and after hearing it in their minds for the second half of the battle, and now all over the station, hundreds of thousands of minds at once, he was catching on quickly.
They were flagged down by a server of some sort, with the black exoskeletons and elaborately detailed bone white head that marked the species. The heads looked eerily like a human skull, with the jaw attached, as he had been warned, and they all wore elaborate robes of various sorts and coverages. The higher the rank, the more clothing they wore, and it looked like nudity wasn’t an issue in their culture, as most of the lower-ranking soldiers and workers wore little more than a shawl over their shoulders to mark their rank.
“Greetings, Commander Keres Max and Tarith Nico. I am Commander Yuri of the Koleska.” The tall man or at least Max assumed it was a man, greeted them in Koleska.
“Greetings, Commander Yuri. It is an honour to be here, enjoying your hospitality.” Max replied, using the local language, and all of the movement in the room stopped while the locals stared at him.
The language was somewhat guttural and had a whistle to it that was hard on his throat, but Max was pretty sure that he had gotten the inflection and intonation right.
“You speak Koleska? Not well, of course, but you learned to speak our language?” Commander Yuri asked.
“Of course. I intend to be here for some time, and it would be inconvenient not to be able to speak to others outside of a text message.”
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Nico smiled at him, “Thank you, Commander Yuri.”
Nico was definitely cheating. Once she heard and analyzed the language, she programmed it into her voice box so the sounds came out perfectly, including the extra whistles and click that a human body couldn’t make, which showed emotion in their speech.
“Now I understand why they sent you first. Welcome to Koleska.”