824 824 Impressing the Tinnar
[Move up, so we can fire down on them without the Station or the planet in the way. That should draw the fighters away enough for Commander Yuri to deploy.] Max ordered as their first Disruptor blasts tore apart huge swathes of the enemy.
Nico shifted in time with him, keeping her shots timed in between his to keep the Fighters dodging. Once they were in place, Max charged forward, firing all six of his Disruptors in a full coverage arc, a short-range flamethrower pattern attack that cleared the whole area in front of them and gave Nico time to get a nuclear-tipped Mass Driver round into the assembling War Walkers.
They were still tightly clustered in preparation for the impending Koleska attack, and thousands died in an instant when the round detonated.
Max chuckled at the Arisen Army’s bad luck and prepared to clear another group of fighters for another strategic attack.
[Aim for the bottom right corner of the Pyramid.] Nico instructed, and Max adjusted his cone of attack, forcing the fighters away from the edges of his pattern and letting Nico’s shot through.
He couldn’t tell what she was aiming for, but just as the Mass Driver round was about to impact impotently against the thick shields of the massive vessel, a smaller Arisen ship, in the more familiar angular pattern, emerged from a bay in that corner and rushed clear of the shielding, directly into Nico’s shot.
[Oh, I love it when a plan comes together. They’re deploying in a strategic pattern to reduce the impact of our attacks, but from above, we can hit nearly everything they deploy until they shift the Pyramid.]
The far side of the vessel had a number of huge round outlets, the main thrusters and Warp Drives for the Pyramid, so it was nearly void of hangars. They couldn’t deploy from there when the ship was in motion. The energy fluctuations from the engines would tear them apart.
Human ships had the same issue, and the hangars couldn’t be placed too close to the Warp Drive Nacelles.
The Arisen wanted to keep those outlets away from the two Mecha, as they were critical components should the shields go down, but on the other hand, having the Mecha up above its peak, where they could see all the hangar bays was also a terrible spot for them.
The Koleska forces were getting into position now, which was distracting the War Walkers. That gave Nico the chance to charge, engaging surprisingly fast thrusters to launch herself into the fighters and begin slicing them apart.
[When did you upgrade the thrusters?] Max asked in confusion, as he didn’t recall her thinking about it at all.
[After the last battle. I’ve been running it as a background process for a while until I came up with a proper upgrade last night. It’s great, isn’t it?] She replied happily.
It was a lot like the Darkling attack craft, throwing her Mecha around in impossibly agile patterns, nearly bouncing between fighter planes, leaving them unable to properly target her thanks to their friendly fire prevention algorithms.
Max focused on clearing out any area where they gathered, inflicting as much pain as he could before the battle really got underway.
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The War Walkers began to charge, firing furiously as they closed the distance to the Koleska formation, and Max stopped his suppression of the fighters to send an Orbital Lance into their ranks, breaking apart their cohesion for a moment and giving the Koleska a short breather to reorganize after the first wave of casualties.
They split into smaller groups to make themselves harder to target and continued their assault against the Arisen Army, while Max cleared a path in front of Nico with a wide pattern attack, letting her move up and around the Pyramid to get behind the War Walker lines.
She was focused on the fighters, but it would make the Arisen Command Walkers second guess their actions with that Mass Driver at their backs.
Inside the Station, the Tinnar were staring in awe at the ongoing battle and the number of early casualties on both sides.
“This is insanity. The planet will fall, and it’s too late to flee.” One of their members cried out as the second wave of Fighter Craft launched out to attack Max, who nimbly rolled through space, creating a constantly changing profile shape for them to shoot at and avoiding the majority of the attacks.
His shields were holding up well, and the Disruptors were still capable of shredding through the light attack vessels, so the human Mecha had the advantage, while the Koleska Defence Force was nearly into close combat range with the War Walkers, where they were historically known to suffer their worst losses.
But today, things were different. The casualty rate was going up drastically, but so was the kill rate.
The front lines of the Station’s attack fleet were the fresh graduates who had years’ worth of experience in the learning machines, and they were holding their own against the War Walkers, while the second rank had fallen back to reduce secondary damage and keep the War Walkers from working together to outnumber the front lines.
The noncombatants watched in horror as another Regiment of War Walkers emerged from the Pyramid and assembled a combined shield that stopped an Orbital Lance from Cleansing Light.
They were beginning to despair for their troops when the Mass Driver round detonated in their ranks, having entered from the back while their attention and shields were focused on dealing with Max.
The explosion tore apart the core of the Regiment and took out all four Command Walkers, sending the group into momentary disarray and leaving them open to the attacks of the Koleska Sniper units in the back lines.
“That level of coordination is incredible. Their small numbers are their greatest advantage since the enemy has nothing to target. Overlapping their firing patterns only disrupts the particle beams, so the Arisen are hindering themselves by sending swarms of vessels at them, but they haven’t realized it yet.” The Tinnar Military Advisor commented with a hint of reverence in his voice.
“Just wait. They will adjust and start sending entire waves of Command Walkers at them soon. They’ve done it before, and it’s usually the point at which they start sending drop craft to the planet. Fortunately, we have excellent orbital insertion defences here.” The Station’s Defence Officer informed them in a grim voice.
Their weapons were formidable, but that didn’t mean they were impervious to assault.