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"Those are Mecha, and they're in no big hurry. Keep searching for survivors and maybe we can give them a bit of good news when they get back. The better the mood they're in, the more likely they are to not leave us stranded on a rock in the middle of a swamp." The Lieutenant barked at his troops, bringing about a round of laughter.
He had a point though, they had a medical team with them that could work wonders if they did find any survivors, so the best thing they could do was to keep searching.
At first, it seemed hopeless, but then they found not one but two pilots at the same time who were still clinging to the edge of life inside their cockpits. One was in a Crusader Class Mecha with the entire top shell that forms the most formidable armor of the Redemption Pattern machine dented and cracked in. It was missing a leg, and the power plant was crushed, but the pilot was still alive inside, having been forgotten by the Narsians in the heat of battle and unable to free himself due to the weight of another mecha leaning against his escape hatch and the damage to his top hatch.
The second was a Line Mecha pilot with incredible luck. When his mecha was destroyed, the force of the blow entirely crushed the bottom of his cockpit, squeezing his legs and preventing the mangled wreck of his body from bleeding out. He would be a noncombat asset after this unless the upper brass saw potential in him and got him a regrowth treatment to replace his limbs or a very good pair of prosthetics.
The Kepler Empire's technology could easily create both full and partial conversion cyborgs from even the most mangled of bodies, as long as the brain was still intact and alive, but due to cost constraints, not many enlisted men got that opportunity. For them, it was basic prosthetics. The pilot would likely walk just fine, but the prosthetics couldn't keep up with the System enhanced reflexes and impacts involved in Mecha Piloting the way the much more advanced Cyborg conversions could.
Better to walk with a prosthetic limp than to rot to death in the swamp though, and the doctors got to work sealing the arteries and finishing the amputation needed to free the pilot from the wreckage of his Mecha.
Strangely, they didn't see many infantry corpses here. The Lieutenant at first thought that none had been sent to this point, but as he looked, he could see bunkers all around the rubble. Did the Mecha order them to retreat? That's unusual for a Kepler Commander.
"Lieutenant, you need to see this." The same call again, from the same scout, but this time he is standing on top of the pile of Narsian bodies looking down at whatever is on the camo netting.
He seemed to be unwilling to approach whatever was there, so the officer assumed that what he saw was going to be hard on the stomach. With that in mind, the young man slowly climbed the mountain of bodies, stopping just before the top when a blade whistled past his face.
"What the feth? Is one of them still alive?" He yelled at his scout, who only stared with an open mouth and pointed at the top of the pile.
The Lieutenant circled around to where the scout was standing, seemingly safe on the other side of the pile. What he saw was enough that he simply fainted on the spot and fell to the bottom of the mound of corpses.
At just that moment, the Stalwart Special Tactics Unit entered the battlefield at the mine.
"Find out who those soldiers are and search for survivors. Gather all the corpses you find and we will give them a proper burial before we go." Max ordered, heading into the southern area of the battlefield to see if the more intact-looking Landers still had any sort of functionality. A few gravestones and more boats would be a good start.
"Major Max, we have found the Tarith's Rage. It has lost both upper limbs, but it looks like someone started to repair it, as the power has come back on." Ari reported.
"And Major Nico?" Max asked grimly.
"No sign Sir. The top hatch is swung open and there are Narsian bodies stuck in the razor wire, I suspect that she exited her Mecha when it was overrun to fight on her own."
No way would she have gone down easily. "Keep Searching. As a Command Officer, it would damage the unit's pride to leave her here."
"Commander, I have contact with the soldiers. They are from a mismatch of units that were mostly destroyed. They have no surviving comms equipment, so they just kept moving until they found this point. They have doctors and are working Triage on the two survivors they found before we arrived." Paul confirmed.
That was excellent news. Not one, but two more survivors from their unit.
Looking North into the camp, Max noticed that six of their Comor Pattern Corvettes were lashed to stakes behind a pile of Narsian bodies, that had a Kepler scout standing near the top.
"Paul, go see what that scout knows. Narsians don't usually build shrines like this out of their own men. We might have taken out a top commander of their force without knowing it." Max sent the command and Paul gave one more longing look to his fallen Crusader before going to fulfill the order.
While he made his way through the battle, Max struck gold. One of the Repair bays was still functional and stocked. The roof of the Lander had collapsed in front of it, and the Narsian forces had ignored its survival.
"Get some Corvettes over here. We have a surviving repair bay and materials. We can get some of the fallen Mecha back up and running, we will just have to double time it to make our destination on time afterward."
Since they had lost far more Crusaders than Pilots, that was great news to the unit. It would let them bring their combat strength back up a little before their next mission. Every mecha they brought back from the dead was a victory against the Narsians, their own personal vow of endurance against all odds.
[Commander. I have found Nico, or what remains of her.] Paul informed Max quietly over the secure Command Channel.
Max left the Lander nearly at a run, slowing only enough that he didn't step on anyone as he made his way to the pile of corpses where Paul stood next to the Kepler scout.
It was indeed Nico. Her Mobile Suit was shattered and peeled off her body, laid out around her like a wreath. Her uniform was shredded and every inch of her skin was covered in scabbed wounds. Both legs had been brutally amputated, as well as one arm.
The wounds were ragged, indicating that they were torn free and not cut, and both her eyes were missing, the vacant holes staring at the sky.
In the one remaining limb, she held her Mobile Suit's sword, still firmly grasped in the remains of the gauntlet.
Seeing that, Max looked at the pile of bodies and saw that they all died to blades, every Narsian in this pile died to Nico in close combat and they had built a Hero's Pire to honor her combat prowess.
The destroyed Comor Pattern Crusaders behind her tied to stakes were their version of a headstone, letting anyone who came by know who the Pyre was for by the unit markings on the Mecha.
Max's altered mind was moving faster than ever, bouncing between proud and devastated, when he saw the sword twitch as Paul approached.
"Paul, Stand Back. I think the body is trapped." Max called, turning on all his sensors to see what the Narsians might have left behind for them.
As Paul retreated, Max advanced, searching the pyre for anything at all, when his thermal sensors detected something very odd. There was still a heat signature coming from Nico.
[Holy crap, she is alive. She shouldn't be, but she is.] Max muttered to himself, not realizing that he still had the Command Channel open.
"Bring the doctors asap. We have a critical survivor." Paul called when he heard Max whisper over the radio.
Four men in tattered white coats ran to the pyre, while Paul moved to restrain Nico's one remaining arm until he could relieve her of her sword.
Max moved Stalwart as close as he could, trying to establish a mental link with Nico, but there was nothing there. There was a mind, but all he could sense was rage and an instinct to survive.
Probing deeper, he found her more recent memories, after twelve hours of unsuccessful torture, they had moved her body from a hard place to a soft place and given her back her sword, after which she was soaked in warm blood and then her conscious thought faded.
Max looked over the pile and saw where the last blood came from, a Narsian officer lay on the side of the pile with his guts split open and the pistol that ended his life still in his hand. The Narsians must have ordered him executed for incompetence, or something similarly embarrassing.
Without the threat of the sword, the doctors quickly got to work, but the grim look on their faces wasn't giving Max much hope for the future. It had been days, and her limbs had been forcibly torn off.
Max knew Nico had a healing-related System Function, but could a human really survive that?
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After an hour of grueling surgery, aided by freshly procured surgical equipment created inside the one remaining Lander bay, the doctors declared Nico to be temporarily stable and said she could be awoken for a short period of time if it was essential to get information from her.
The power of her System Function amazed them. The surface wounds on her body left by the Narsian torturers were already scarred, and the lightest of her injuries had closed before anyone even arrived. She would likely still have died in a few more hours, but with nutrients, a lot of artificial blood plasma, and the very best treatments that field medicine could offer, she now had at least a twenty percent chance of survival. Enough to give Max a sliver of hope.
'As half a person.' Max thought to himself, holding her remaining hand in his own.
The touch seemed to be a signal to Nico, and Max's wrist device lit up with a message.
[Put me back in my room.]
Her room? Did she think that she was still at home? There was no telling how much damage had been done to her mind under the not-so-gentle auspices of the Narsians.
[Put me back in my room.]
The message repeated, but this time there was a bit of clarity in her mind through the pain and rage. She meant the cockpit of Tarith's Rage. The cockpit wasn't sized for another pilot to be able to use it, they were all too large so it couldn't be reassigned to another Pilot, but she would have a better chance to live if they brought her with them and kept up with intensive treatment. Leaving both her and her mecha together might be a fitting tribute to her personality, but it would be such a waste to let her die here after enduring so much. Max simply couldn't bring himself to follow her request.
While Max considered what to do next and gave orders to dig a trench grave for the fallen, the rest of the battlefield was cleared. Before Max realized how much time had passed, they had spent three whole hours here, putting them far behind schedule, and he had to finish up and get going, or risk being reprimanded for insubordination.
Finally, he made his choice. Nico could stay and go out the way she wanted. Not as a mechanically rebuilt office clerk, but as a Crusader Class Pilot.
[Fine, I'll take you home. We are assigned to grid TA24, if you can, meet us there later.] Max sent the message to her wrist device, still attached to her single arm, but got only a beep from his own device in reply. She must not have been able to form another sentence.
"Doctors, move the patient to the cockpit of Tarith's Rage and leave her with as much healing solution and nutrient drip as you can attach to an IV. We have a battle to get to." Max informs the doctors, who nod their understanding and get to work, asking a pilot with a gauntlet to lift them up onto the carapace, which they have to wipe clean of bodies and blood to be able to safely cross.
Max thought back to the first day the techs tried to walk on that carapace, and about the unfortunate man who slipped and ended up tangled in the wire, having to be hoisted up and cut free by his coworkers.
Other than Tarith's Rage, which someone hastily attached mildly damaged new arms to, they managed to get four Crusaders active again, and one of the Comor Pattern Corvettes. Everything else had taken too much damage to be repaired on their current timeline.
Max sent a message to Command, letting them know what was going on, and that there were a lot of materials and broken mecha here to be reclaimed by a force with the time to repair them. General Tennant assured him that a force was set to be arriving there very soon, and asked that the wayward troopers be left behind to wait for the recovery force. Other than the doctors, they would only be deadweight to a Special Tactics Unit.
Doctors in the Kepler Military often chose their own assignments once in battle, based on the need as they saw it, and one did choose to go with Max, loading up with as much equipment as the boats could carry until he had a basic surgical suite in crates. The extra weight and bulk were not optimal, but for the chance to get surgery from a proper doctor and not a field medic? They could definitely find a way to keep it with them.
To get to their destination, the Corvettes were practically running through the swamp, relying on the Crusaders out front to check the depth for them, and the swamp boats were doing their best to search for deep spots as they raced ahead of the convoy.
Getting to their destination tonight was the order, but it was more important that they actually all made it there. Thus, a few stops were made to let pilots catch their breath and grab a meal, which they couldn't do properly while operating.
In the end, they were almost an hour behind schedule when they arrived and the freshly deployed mecha from the most recent wave of Landers were beginning to worry that the Unit had been attacked in the swamp.
[Sorry for the delay Gentlemen. There was a battle site along the way and we had to stop to do a burial.] Max informed them, and the complaints instantly ceased.
No soldier would hold it against his comrades for stopping to honor the dead, especially not when they themselves weren't even in combat yet and had just arrived on the planet.
"Alright, we have the orders here already. Before dawn, Command wants the city perimeter searched and a secure way into the launch location for anti-Lander weapons found. This location was sending hostile fire at the Landers, and they want it eliminated and for the city to be retaken. Any civilian survivors are a bonus."
That's an easy enough order to follow, and Max takes a close look at the layout of the city and surrounding areas according to the satellite scans. There is a large park near the middle of the city that was obscured in the images, and Max was willing to wager that was their target, but getting to it without getting trapped or forced to a halt by the defenders could be an issue.
The data they have doesn't have any indications of resistance, civilian forces, other units in the area, or anything but the actual map of the city, so Max starts plotting entry locations. First out will be the scout bikes, looking for signs of patrols and Narsian forces stationed near the edge of the city.
Once they have that data, Max can search for a good way into the city itself.
Max sends the bikes out in the middle of the night so that they can start getting the data right away. Most of the infantry wasn't too exhausted, having been in the boats for the whole trip, so Captain Catan managed to find his twenty riders without issues and set out.
From what they can tell, the city is either abandoned or in a full blackout, as they do for impending air raids.
"Ari, Paul, Vincente, take the Mobile Suits and a squad of infantry infiltration specialists each and make an entry here, here, and here." Max directs, pointing at the map towards routes that the scouts and the orbital scans all showed as abandoned.
"I will take the mecha of Bravo Squad and enter from the Western main highway as a diversion. If we make entry successfully, the main force can follow at first light. If not, they will be coming to one of you. There are more waves of landers coming, and Central Command wants this point clear before that happens." Max instructs, climbing up into Stalwart for the diversion mission.
One heavy mecha with a single wing of Corvette Class mecha isn't a huge threat, but it is enough firepower that Max shouldn't have a problem fighting his way back out if they run into trouble. Nothing they have seen so far suggests a huge enemy force in the city, and the sensor data sent back from the scout bikes showed almost no life near the edges of the ruined metropolis.
Max circles wide to give the others time to get in position before the sight of Stalwart draws attention, then proudly marches his unit straight down the highway into town.
[Are we sure this is a good idea?] One of the pilots asks nervously, not expecting an answer.
[That depends on what your desired outcome is. If we want to pick a fight and blast holes in a load of Narsians this is an absolutely amazing plan.] A second one suggests, making Max chuckle.
Being the bait is never much fun, but without it, the scouts would be in even more danger, and they were already on foot and without a safe position behind them to fall back.
The city really does feel empty though. Max isn't finding any sign of a shield, no sign of a patrol, not even any signs of life in the buildings that they have passed. The whole thing is giving him an ominous feeling.
[Scout squads, run air quality checks. Something isn't adding up and I don't want you walking into nerve gas.] Max orders.
Normally the Kepler Military wouldn't use such a thing, as it cripples but doesn't always kill, which violates the international standards on cruelty. But there is no guarantee that the Narsians or even a civilian force wouldn't do it if they thought they were going to lose.
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The moment Max's convoy stopped, the Narsian infiltrators who were hiding among the buildings realized that something was wrong. This opponent was much more cautious than the ones that had come before him.
They sent an emergency signal back to the main base and waited for a reply. A few seconds later, bright smiles passed across their faces, hidden under smooth metallic stealth helmets and they began circling around behind Max's convoy, joined by the other scout teams in the area.
[Look alive everyone, I've got incoming signals in front of us, fifteen Narsian heavy infantry in a reverse V formation. It looks like they want to funnel us in for an attack.] Max informed his unit, who spread out to counter the Narsian tactic.
If they let the Narsian attack formation get around their sides they would soon be unable to maneuver and would either be surrounded or forced backward into whatever trap the Narsians had prepared. Maneuverability was one of the few advantages they had at close range, the Corvette Class Mecha, especially the Comor pattern, with its light and nimble organic shell shape, assisted by stabilizing thrusters, had a much easier time traversing rubble at high speed than the Narsian Heavy Infantry.
[Steady for the charge. Pick your targets and fire in 3, 2, NOW.] Max ordered, lighting up the approaching infantry with his Pulse Lasers and his Battle Cannon, letting the sound serve as a warning to the infantry scouts that the diversion team had found enemies in the city and to be careful.
The giants' armor was no match for the weapons of a Crusader Class Mecha, and when combined with the fire from the light Mecha, every one of the attackers was down in seconds.
[That was suspiciously easy.] Juan, one of the light mecha pilots muttered over the team channel.
[Too easy. Hold your positions and circle Stalwart.] Max ordered seconds before dozens more infantry charged out of underground tunnels and ruined buildings.
The scouts behind them charged as well, realizing that the Ambush was going to have to proceed without the trap since this stubborn Crusader wasn't going to even attempt to retreat.
When the sudden roar of sustained Mecha fire sounded through the city, the infantry teams began to increase their pace. It would increase their own chances of being detected and killed, but Stalwart couldn't hold out forever against an enemy that was making them work that hard from the beginning.
In the ambush, things were not going as well as planned for the Narsians. First, the Crusader had an energy shield that they hadn't seen before and it was making a mockery of their snipers, then there was this advanced pattern of Corvette Class Mecha that deflected even the most solid of hits with its curved shape, but the worst had to be the shotguns.
Over and over Stalwart's twin Plasma Shotguns sent out clusters of unstable Plasma, burning holes through armor and crippling Narsian targets. The Heavy Mecha wasn't even trying to kill them, he was firing everywhere with those Pulse Lasers of his, and crippling the back lines with the shotguns, so they could barely defend themselves when the Light Mecha pushed back.
Despite only losing a dozen or so troops, over seventy fighters had been removed from the battle. They had gravely misjudged the capabilities of this Mecha, assuming it to be geared for fighting other Mecha, the way almost all of its compatriots were. Instead, they had pulled the short straw and gotten what was possibly the only anti-infantry Mecha in the entire sector.
[Stalwart, target sighted and pinged with the laser sight. Scout teams are retreating. Vincente reported, out of breath from the final run-in to locate the target and escape the wrath of the guards.
The mobile suits weren't heavily armed, but they could fight off a few patrol members if they needed. It was just that there were way more than a few in that former park along with the orbital defense weapons.
So, he ran, and his men ran with him like the devil himself was chasing them.
[Viable route to the target found. Sending in the main force.] The unit commander back at the camp reported when Vincente's locator came through.
That was Max's signal to retreat since their part of the job was done, so he slowly started backing Stalwart down the road, with the Corvettes still circled around him. The Crusader walked in a stumbling circle, which let it target both the front and back groups with its Plasma Shotguns as well as the Pulse Lasers, pushing them back and letting the Corvettes clear a path so they could keep moving.
It was a slow procession, and the damages were starting to add up. Stalwart's shield was flickering in and out of existence every few seconds as he sustained constant fire, and the status indicators for all of the Corvettes had moved from warning yellow to severely damaged red, with a few showing disabled arms or torso joints.
They were all still moving though, and the Radar showed that the main force was almost on top of them.
"It's been a pleasure doing business with you." Max laughed over the intercom, sending a furious barrage of fire into the giants between them and the main force, which was closing at a full run and nearly had a clear line of sight to begin firing.
The giants were in a full-on rage now, realizing that the Scout unit they had ambushed was bait, drawing them out for the main force to finish, not an exploration team checking the status of the city.
There were too many incoming Mecha for them to handle with their current numbers, so the Narsian attack squad broke off, disappearing into the buildings and the ruins of the subway system before the main force could arrive.
[They will have all headed back to the defense lines around the weapons. Be ready for a fight to the finish, they won't give up that weapon easily.] Max welcomed the Colonel that was leading the main force in.
[Good job, Stalwart. We couldn't have asked for a better scout team. Retreat and repair, the techs are waiting for you.] The Colonel replied, leading his men past, shooting sporadic bursts into the city when they thought their sensors detected anything suspicious.
[Watch for Nerve Gas. We took an alternate route out of the city and found lingering fumes. Someone used it here in the city. There are also heavy civilian casualties in this area, both in the streets and inside buildings, which indicates the usage was Narsian.] Ari reported as her team reached the edge of the city.
The spot where she left the city was most likely the last stand of the civilians, and the Narsians simply did whatever was convenient to wipe them out as fast as possible to secure the area.
There was nothing to be done about it now though, except to inflict retribution upon the Narsians, so Ari led her unit back to the camp and began writing her report. This was her least favorite part of her job as an officer, the same as Max. Writing mission reports not only made you remember the parts that went horribly wrong, but it also was dull and boring, and there was a very high chance that nobody would ever read them. They just had to be logged into the system for the algorithm to check for inconsistencies so that you could move on to the next mission.
It was like a special form of torture designed especially for them.
The sight that greeted Ari when she got back wasn't a relaxed and waiting camp though, it was a thousand mecha pilots and infantrymen gathered around a slow-moving procession of Mecha coming back.
That was Max's unit, and looking at it, Ari was shocked that they were all still moving at all. Even with the Landers on site to get everyone into a repair bay in a reasonable timeframe, it would not be quick or easy to get all those Corvettes back up to maximum capacity. In fact, Ari wasn't even sure if the other Landers had the templates to make spare parts for the weapons that they were using since they weren't a standard pattern and had been customized by Major Nico before the mission began.
They should still have some spares though, so Ari sent a squad to go search the boats for spare Corvette Class weapons. Armor plates could be made in minutes and installed in under an hour, but more intricate things like hydraulics and electronics, as well as the advanced systems in the energy weapons, took a lot longer to fix. Something about this place put her on edge, and Ari was convinced that having the Corvettes down for even an hour longer than necessary was a recipe for disaster.
Max was feeling the same way, but for the moment he was writing it off as the fact that so much of the camp's main force had entered the city without doing a proper sweep. Sure, they had a clear path to the target, but they had no idea what else was waiting for them inside the city limits, and it left the camp in a tight spot if that wasn't the only force in the area.
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Feeling the unease shared by their officers, the repair crews worked as fast as they could to get everything in order at the camp. Every repair bay was in use, and for the mecha that could be fixed without the dedicated bay, they set up a spot in the center of the camp for them to be worked on.
Even troopers with no mechanical knowledge were pressed into service, bringing parts, holding armor plates, and making sure energy storage magazines were full.
Only once every piece of equipment was in good working order did they begin to relax.
The battle within the city was going better than expected. The Narsians did push out once they saw the main force, but their numbers weren't enough to challenge the Kepler force, even with the advantage of being the defenders within a city environment.
The weapons capable of targeting Landers, as well as all locations that might have housed more of them, were already destroyed, and the battle was now for the Kepler forces to leave the city.
[More Narsian light infantry from 27 degrees]
[Additional Narsian units at 315 degrees]
One after another, the calls came of additional Narsian forces, and Max realized why it was so easy to get into the city. The giants had made it impossible to leave. Over twenty additional Companies of Narsians had been hidden outside the city, or so deeply within the perimeter that they didn't notice or attract the notice of Max's scouting squads.
The radar was acting up again, showing obviously false readings, so Max was certain that they had some sort of jamming device with them. The only question was where, and could he get permission to go looking for it?
[Stalwart to Central Command. Radar interference device in use at grid TA27. Permission to send scouts to locate the source?] Max called, giving the customary notification.
[Negative, hold tight, Stalwart. Landers are incoming now. ETA 14 minutes.] It wasn't often that a request to scout was denied, but they were holding a camp full of spare parts and munitions, as well as a large group of support troops. With more mecha coming, Max understood why they weren't sent out.
Just as the first streaks of fire from the orbital entries began in the sky, signaling the next wave had begun, the camp scouts reported enemy movement near the edge of their sensor range. A scout unit of Narsians had finally discovered their base.
The scouts retreated as fast as they could, waiting for more forces to arrive, but Max was having none of that today.
[Squads Alpha and Bravo, send all Corvettes to eliminate those scouts. I want them dead before reinforcements arrive.] Max ordered and the remaining nineteen Comor Pattern units belonging to the Special Tactics unit went running out to intercept the scouts.
Max was tracking their progress with his own sensors, and the moment he had a lock on the scouts Stalwart's Battle Cannon began sending indirect fire towards the fleeing giants, cutting off their retreat and leaving them vulnerable to the mecha coming up on their backs. The battle was short and brutal, with the numbers of Kepler Mecha being enough to take out the scouts in a single volley.
[Cease retreat and hold.] Came the orders from within the city. The assault force had been drug to a halt and was now moving to a defensive position, waiting out the battle.
Either they would manage to eliminate the Narsians right where they were, or they would be wiped out to the very last. In a battle like that, there really wasn't any other choice, except the possibility that one of the Landers would drop in the city and give them some fire support.
Nine minutes left to the arrival of the next wave, the Narsians decided to get sneaky, sending three of their critically injured soldiers sneaking toward the camp as suicide bombers. They would die within an hour anyhow, as the Narsians lacked the medical technology to treat such severe wounds, but two of the three managed to get close enough that they heavily damaged Crusaders on the patrol line with their final acts.
[Move back, reserves, take their places. The Narsians won't let us get our reinforcements that easily.] Max declared, hoping to inspire some fighting spirit in the shocked troops of the defensive lines.
These forces only arrived with the last drop, they hadn't had time to see the atrocities that the Narsians were capable of or the level of bloodshed that was normal in a full-scale battle. Simulations could only teach you so much, no matter how realistic.
But in the end, Max was wrong. The Narsians did indeed let them get their reinforcements that easily. Two landers full of Heavy Mecha Companies landed within the city, and all signs of Narsian activity vanished as they made a desperate push to eliminate the assault force and the new arrivals.
All Max could do was wait and listen to the sounds of distant battle while the fate of the city, and the Kepler forces around it, was decided. One after another, Narsian forces were found and eliminated, with two hundred freshly arrived Crusader Class Mecha scouring the city for any signs of them.
Unfortunately, no signs of human life were found until the third hour, when a bunker that had a building collapsed over its entry was located, full of civilian survivors. A few hundred out of the hundred thousand who used to live here, but it was a few hundred better than Max had been expecting after seeing the signs of Nerve Gas usage. The bunker they were in was sealed and intact, so they never suffered the fate that the others did, nor did they make it out of their bunker to join the resistance after the initial attacks. They had been stuck in there since the very first day of the invasion, nearly two weeks ago.
[Stalwart Special Tactics Unit? I am Lieutenant Beckett and my wing has been sent to reinforce you.] a youthful female voice greeted Max as a wing of ten Comor Pattern Corvettes approached from one of the nearby Landers.
[We brought a replacement Mecha for Captain Paul as well. The same pattern as his previous unit Ferrus, with a Heavy Laser Cannon, and an Ion Destroyer. But this one has a top-mounted Plasma Shotgun of a modified design based on the Cygnus weapons mounted on Stalwart.] A second voice adds, not identifying itself.
That news is enough to bring a huge smile to the Pilot's face. His own unit was too heavily damaged for repairs, so he had been relegated to Mobile Suit usage for a while now. The new mecha hadn't earned a name yet, being fresh off the production line, but if it survived this engagement, it would receive one, most likely involving the word Ferrus, in honor of the fallen predecessor.
Of course, Ferrus might still be revived, if they could find the parts and determined that enough of the structure was intact to make it worth the time, but from now on, it would no longer be assigned to Captain Paul.
That brings the unit to only one Corvette and one Crusader less than when they started, so their mecha power was almost back to full, and they had only lost a few infantry so far. This mission could be said to be a very productive one for the Special Tactics Unit.
[Stalwart Special Tactics Unit, new orders are incoming.] Comes the message from Central Command.
Ninety Kilometers east of them, into the foothills of the mountain range that rings that side of the swamp, there is a training facility. They have finished their emergency piloting course, and they need a scout team to identify targets in the mountains for their new Pilots to hunt.
They were all second-year basic cadets, and the facility was known as a dumping ground for future Line Mecha pilots that couldn't make the cut for anything better due to poor effort or low System Compatibility, but they have decided that this lot is now ready for battle. All the older students were sent out to fight during the early stages of the invasion and the freshmen aren't ready yet.
Max relays the orders to the rest of the unit, getting groans and sighs of frustration and disappointment all around. Some because of the mission, some because Central Command has determined that things are so bad on the planet that sending cadets out who had only begun practical Mecha use a few months ago is necessary.
That's not Max's major concern though. He has faith that his unit can guide them through the essentials of an introductory battle. His real concern is why they would ask a Special Tactics Unit to take up the duty, when Max can see with his own two eyes that they have sent entire Landers full of Scout class Sentinel Mecha to the region. Something doesn't add up, and it doesn't look good for the survival chances of the trainees.
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Max walked Stalwart over to the senior infantry officer in camp before disembarking, using the same winch system that he first saw General Tennant using from the Phalanx Class Shining Darkness to lower himself to the ground. The only difference is, that Max used the top hatch on Stalwart since the side door is a single-use Emergency Hatch.
"Colonel. My unit has been ordered to move out to do some reconnaissance for a freshly trained group of local partisans, so we will be departing immediately, but I would like it if you would do a favor for me." Max asked.
The soldier gave Max a curt nod, showing that he would do it even if he disagreed, and Max continued. "Somewhere in the swamp is a Crusader that looks a lot like mine. Bone and Bronze with red accents and half red shoulder pauldrons. We had to leave it behind due to damages, but if the pilot comes looking for us, let them know where we went. I can't guarantee that they will be able to get communications working, or that we would hear them even if they did."
That brings a look of relief to the soldier's face. Passing along a memo to a lost Pilot is no big deal, though finding that Pilot is a big deal to their unit.
"Sure thing Major. There are a number of units gathered in the swamp right now, infantry and support units that is. Once they're finished there, they will likely come here, since they're from our cruiser. If they bring any of your Mecha I will let them know that you're looking for them."
Max gave the Colonel a salute before activating the winch and pulling himself back up to the top of Stalwart in one smooth motion. Given his physical capabilities, he could have easily jumped that high, but this way looks much more elegant and impressive. Now he sees why General Tennant did it that way all the time.
The last order of business before they leave is to handle the gear. They're not in the swamps anymore where the boats can carry large amounts of gear with ease. Moving through the foothills will take another approach if they want to keep most of the unit's supplies.
[Spread out and search for functional civilian heavy transports. One will be the bare minimum, three is enough to keep everything.] Max orders and the infantry goes on a hunt.
In the worst-case scenario, they can make a trailer from the Landers' equipment program and pull it with one of the Crusaders, but that would make both the fear and the infantry in the trailer a higher priority target.
[Sir, we have what we need. There is a transport company yard with functional vehicles in the garage.] Captain Catan reports just before the humming of anti-gravity drives, or more precisely the low-quality ones used for heavy equipment, sounds in the distance.
From the look of them, these were heavy mining equipment, not long-distance transports, but in a way that's even better. They might be somewhat slow, but the carrying capacity is unmatched.
According to the placard on the side, they are good for sixty tons of ore each, and they are seven meters tall, enough that the Corvette Class mecha can hide behind them. They're also heavily Armored, for the safety of the crew while transporting heavy materials.
One after another, they glide out of the warehouse until ten enormous vehicles are lined up.
[They even have cranes, so we can keep the boats.] Captain Catan brags, before offering his men to load the first one into his cargo bay.
It's an open-topped space, but the Narsians don't spend much time flying, so the risk is minimal. Given their size, one of these behemoths could hold all the gear, but Max has a better plan.
[Ten is too many. Put some back. We will take three. Spread the gear between them and load the Corvettes inside, crouched out of sight. Anyone who tries to ambush us is in for a world of pain.] Max orders and Seven ore tea sorts are returned to storage.
[Ari, you have point. Vincente, you have the tail and I will take the left flank, which leaves Paul the right. To the Narsians we will look like a simple raw materials convoy with a depleted Heavy Mecha Wing as its guards.]
In the more populated areas that would be common, keeping the repair and munitions production units supplied. Food and weapons are shipped in other and faster vehicles since these slow transports are vulnerable to attack and can't run away.
With everything loaded the protective tarps are rolled over the open top and the convoy begins to head for the foothills.
Traveling speed for the big vehicles is a comfortable walking speed for the Crusaders, making their progress down the ruins of the Goodyear look perfectly natural. Even the Narsians watching the camp from a distance don't see anything odd about it and report it as a material shipment for units further from this contested position to intercept.
Attacking the supply lines now would give away their position, which is a terrible trade for a single shipment of raw ore. But once they get into the hills Max knows they will become a much more lucrative target. In fact, he's counting on it.
At this speed, the journey will take three hours, with the facility being located just off the main highway they are following. But by two hours in, Max was beginning to question his estimate of the enemy's priorities. Did they actually not care about the Kepler supply lines?
Or was it possible that they were stretched so thin in this twin that they couldn't spare a single unit to intercept?
The unit was only ten kilometers from their destination when they finally found the reason that nothing had attacked them during their slow-moving trip.
Six Landers full of infantry were entrenched on a hill surrounded by Narsian soldiers. The giants were clearly taunting them, raining Plasma on them every time they tried to set up bunkers and generally keeping them suppressed and hiding.
Eventually, the Narsians would attack and wipe these soldiers out, but they were hoping that someone would be sent to assist the Kepler forces first.
[Alpha Squad, disembark and spread out behind the convoy. Bravo and Charlie, stay hidden until I give the order.] Max commanded his troops, while the huge transports continued along the highway as if they didn't know anything was happening.
To the Narsians that were keeping the Kepler infantry pinned down, an ore convoy that didn't even rate a full five mecha wing to escort it was possibly the most disappointing set of reinforcements that they could have seen, second only to a depleted infantry company. But they were still heavy Mecha, so there was no option but to engage now before the attack started.
So, the back lines of the Narsian attack force turned to face the convoy, only a half second before Stalwart and Paul's unnamed replacement for Ferrus unleash their long ranged firepower. Ari's Bulwark joined in with its Ion Destroyer, and Vincente's Morning Glory began lobbing indirect fire up in the air with its Battle Cannon since it couldn't see properly from its position behind the convoy.
The suddenness of the attack seemed to catch the Narsians off guard. They had expected the small force to hesitate when seeing the odds stacked against them, but instead, they were met with a withering storm of fire. Even worse, it wasn't all aimed at the closest targets. The Pulse Lasers on Stalwart had an uncanny knack for hitting Narsian soldiers who were targeting the pinned-down Kepler infantry, punching holes in their backs while they were distracted.
The infantry took great joy in this small bit of payback, as well as taking advantage of the opening to set up heavy weapons positions and start properly firing back at the giants who had been holding them hostage until moments ago.
Slowly, the forces from the far side of the Landing zone were moved to take care of the attacking Mecha force, leaving only a scattered line of soldiers behind to keep the Kepler infantry from escaping. That was Alpha squad's signal, and as soon as the Narsians had removed as many as they seemed likely to, the wing of Corvette class mecha attacked.
The result was chaos. Each mecha was left with only a few targets on that side of the encirclement, which all died within seconds of the Mecha opening fire, and now those who had been reassigned didn't know if they should return or follow their orders and advance on the Heavy Mecha.
The hesitation only got more of them killed, as Alpha squad advanced and the infantry's heavy weapons teams laid down as much fire as they could manage.
Just when things were starting to get under control, Max gave the next order. [Bravo and Charlie, disembark and join the fight. Pin them between us and the infantry.]
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The appearance of the additional light mecha sent the Narsian infantry into a full charge, turning their back on the infantry to deal with the greatest threat first. Even with their losses, they still outnumbered the Mecha force by almost four to one.
The Light Mecha, as well as Bulwark and Morning Glory, moved forward to meet the charge. Bulwark's shield seemed to annoy the giants' sensibilities every time they saw it, but the Rending Claw on Morning Glory was their primary target.
The blades on the three crushing pincers were deadly, but the flamer in the middle was a much bigger concern. If it was allowed to bathe the battlefield in plasma fire they would be at a huge disadvantage.
The fastest two runners went straight for Morning Glory, losing their lives to a masterful scoop with the claw before being roasted by the torch in the middle of the melee weapon. But they weren't alone. Three more were right behind them, too close to all be deflected.
One was knocked down by a backhand with the Battle Cannon, but two more landed solid hits on the legs of the mecha before being shot apart by the Corvettes.
By then, the main line had reached the Special Tactics Unit, and furious close combat battles were underway beneath a flashing mantle of Pulse Laser fire as Max did his best to eliminate the units still at a longer range so that the infantry could begin to maneuver and assist Alpha Squad.
The Corvette Class Mecha successfully repelled the first wave of the Narsian charge, not letting any of them through to attack the relatively helpless long-ranged mecha, but the numbers still heavily favored the giants.
Max didn't particularly need protection though, and neither did Paul. Both were now equipped with Plasma Shotguns that could easily defend the mecha against groups of close-range attackers, so both Pilots moved forward to join the scrum, taking some of the pressure off the Light Mecha.
The Plasma Shotguns weren't a standard Kepler weapon, and Cygnus was an unknown entity to the Narsians, so the first few blasts took them entirely by surprise, tearing apart armor and crippling Narsians by the handful.
It was enough to pull the battle to a stalemate, with the first few Corvettes being damaged to the point of collapse, forcing them to retreat and putting pressure on the others. The overall ratio was holding steady though, at four to one in favor of the Narsians.
Alpha Squad had been forced to a standstill, joining the infantry in their defensive positions and returning fire towards the Narsian forces, so Max brought the last of his reserves into the battle, calling the infantry company to set up on top of the Transports and thin out the Narsian forces.
It was a risky move for them, as it left them mostly in the open and could lead to mass casualties, but for a few seconds, it turned the tide of the battle back in favor of the Special Tactics Unit.
Then, the most glorious of sounds reached Max's external microphones. Light Mecha in a large group were running through the forest in their direction.
The mecha began shooting the moment they saw Narsians, wounding many and letting Alpha Squad get up out of the holes they had hidden in to again put the full weight of their ranged fire into the enemy lines.
There was something wrong with these Mecha though. They were clumsy, inaccurate, and visibly inept. To Max, they looked like second-year Cadets having their first outing on the training grounds. They knew the controls, but they lacked coordination, and many of them were clearly very slow to enter the commands, so the Mecha's movements were jerky and had visible pauses between them.
They had the markings of the training base that Max had been sent to scout for though, so he would have to deal with it one way or the other. He just hoped that it was the first battle nerves getting to them and that they weren't always this bad.
If they were this was going to be a very long deployment.
Two hundred Line Mecha, no matter how inaccurate, was enough to put the Narsians in a bad position. They could only take so many away from close combat without being overrun, and they didn't have enough units left at range to effectively suppress both targets at once.
So, they did what any sensible Commander would do. They retreated, breaking free of Max's unit and firing as they ran backward, preventing him from following them without taking heavy damage.
[All units fall in on me. I need damage reports for everyone and then we will get triage started in the landers. They might have come full of infantry, but we have enough raw materials with us to do the repairs.] Max ordered, marking the end of the battle.
As Max's men start getting set up to do the repairs, the Commander of the patrol that came from the Academy, who was the only one in a Corvette Class mecha, came up to greet him.
[Major Max, of the Stalwart Special Tactics Unit I assume? I am Colonel Sanders. It's a pleasure to meet you. I don't believe the planet has ever turned out a Special Tactics Unit of our own, so meeting an elite of the Kepler Fleet is an honor.]
They've never had a Special Tactics unit from the planet? Max knew some planets had lousy System Compatibility but isn't that taking it too far? The fact that the Base Commander was the only one in a Corvette Class mecha, and that the one he was in was an older pattern training Mecha, and not an up-armored unit that was more commonly used for combat should have been his first clue that things weren't well on Sigmund long before the attack.
[It's a pleasure to meet you as well Colonel. Did you notice the commotion from the base, or were you just taking the Cadets out for a training patrol?] Max asked politely.
[That's well, you see. You know what, there's no good way to put this. Those aren't the Cadets. Those are the finest of our freshly graduated Pilots. The academy is for failures and screw-ups, more like a Juvenile Detention facility than a military installation, but Sigmund has never turned out a Pilot over Beta Rank System Compatibility. During our last recruitment, we only had two Beta Ranked Pilots to offer, so they didn't even form a Heavy Mecha Regiment. They just attached wings of Light Mecha to the infantry as support.]
[I understand, you work with what you have. I can give them a crash course in not dying on the battlefield if we have a bit of time. What is the average System Compatibility?] Max asked, trying to hide the dismay in his voice.
[The average should be on the high side of Delta. But I will warn you, I read your file and the standards from Kepler Terminus are much higher than those here. If they can awaken the System at all, they are pilots. Our infantry is all F Ranked and systemless. The infantry from those Landers is likely stronger, better equipped, and better trained than any unit of locals left on the planet.] Colonel Sanders explained.
[That's fine. Let's get back to the base. How far is it?]
Colonel Sanders pointed to a ridgeline under five kilometers away, where Max could faintly make out a hidden door. They were in sight of the Landers and it took them that long to get a unit mustered and make it to the battle? Someone is messing with him, Max is sure of it.
High above the planet, in a Central Command meeting aboard Abraham Kepler, General Tennant felt a sudden chill run up his spine.
"Have the units in the swamp made it to the mine site yet?" The General asked, looking to the officer in charge of the region.
"Yes sir. Recovery is underway, and all units are expected to become functional again within 48 hours. Assuming that the Narsian patrols that have entered the swamp are just passing through and not launching another mass attack on the mine location that is." The Captain responded, after double-checking his latest sensor data.
"Once they have everything cleaned up, report back to me so we can reassign them. The swamp is an excellent central staging point for attacks, but it doesn't have any strategic value other than location anymore." General Tennant ordered before moving on to the next group of orders on his desk.
The casualties from the first wave have been staggering. Forget ten years of service, this recruitment from Kepler 111 was likely going to need to be reinforced after its first battle.
On the ground, communications were too limited for the forces to know that though. They could only see how things were going in their region and assume that everyone else got the same amount of reinforcements that they did, not knowing that entire regions had been lost to the Narsians during the first wave and the increased numbers in the best-defended regions were there to take the others back.
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Looking over these troops, and their instructor, Max was almost tempted to call Command and pretend they'd never found them. But, as luck would have it, Max actually enjoyed helping others learn, so before he told Central Command that they were simply wasting resources, he was going to spend a few days giving his all to see if these pilots could actually improve.
Right now, all they knew was the skills of a Corvette Pilot, with a Gamma Ranked system compatibility at the very best, and Max suspected that most of the instructors weren't even to that standard. How could cadets be expected to excel if they had never even learned what a proper pilot looked like?
Back on Kepler Terminus, all of the instructors were of a very high standard and simply preferred teaching to the battlefield or police duties. Here, they took what they could get.
[Move everyone back to the academy. If these Landers are functional, assemble them outside the gates in a staggered pattern barricade. We will make the academy our base of operations for now.] Max ordered, bringing sighs of relief from the infantry they just rescued.
They had feared that they would be sent out alone to face the Narsians since the ship they had arrived on had such a large infantry complement compared to the number of Mecha on board. It wasn't that they were cowards or incompetent, but before landing on the planet, they had never even seen one before and knew nothing about their attack patterns, strategies, or weapons.
With a Special Tactics Unit around, they could pick up tips and tricks from the gossip before they were assigned to go somewhere else and fight it out. If they were really lucky they might get to bring some of the mecha with them as well.
With a quick location entry from the infantry unit leaders, all six landers smoothly lifted from the ground and placed themselves in a semi-circle by the academy doors. Each Lander overlapped and left a large gap to move between them, allowing Mecha and troops to move in and out, but preventing any long-range fire from hitting the academy doors directly.
Truthfully it wasn't optimal, since they didn't know what sort of facilities the Academy built inside a hill actually had, and using the landers as a barricade put the repair facilities in the line of fire, but it was better than having the troops exposed, and they didn't have a safer spot for the Landers even if they wanted to protect them.
[Headmaster. Do you have Crusader Capable repair bays here at the academy?] Max asked, voicing his concern.
[One single bay. But we have a number of spare parts available. Since nobody on the planet has strong system compatibility we train a lot of repair and design techs instead and send them out to various space stations for assignment.] Colonel Sanders, in his Corvette Class training Mecha, explains.
That's a good sign. If they can keep everything up and running, all he needs to do is improve the skills of the Line Mecha pilots a little bit to see a big return on investment.
Most likely they have never learned the little tricks that make piloting much easier and are still doing things by the basic training book. Learning a personalized piloting technique that eliminates all the redundancies and wasted movements is what pilots do in the second half of their academy stay on Kepler Terminus after they have been introduced to the basics of piloting and learned to use the weapons targeting systems.
From what he saw, the Pilots here haven't even got that second part down. Though they stopped to fire, as expected of a rookie pilot, their aim was still horrible.
[Do you have training Simulators? If you do, I have some advanced programs from Kepler Terminus that I modified for my own training. It will give them help with their targeting.] Max suggests.
It will actually yell at them constantly in General Tennant's voice, but it does give good hints, all the ones that the General gave out to either him or Nico during their stay at the academy, as well as the basic ones that were already programmed into the advanced piloting simulators.
[Not the really fancy ones, but we have the full immersion VR headsets for every cadet.] The Colonel declares with a hint of unjustified pride. Those are kids' toys on Kepler Terminus, but they will do well enough. After all, he learned the basics using one.
It was a hacked one, with Pirated software and he was five years old, but that isn't the point. The point is that they will be able to give these pilots an upgrade in skills. Max's system wasn't active when he learned and he could still pilot better than what he had seen, so there is no good reason that these cadets can't.
[Once we're inside, gather everyone around and I will give them an update and let them know what's going on. Then I need to find out where they are currently with their system bonuses. Even if they hit fifty points total bonus by graduation, we could throw them in any spare Corvette Class units you have and call them Sergeants.]
The Colonel went quiet for a while but eventually agreed with Max's idea.
[If there is anyone who hit fifty points of bonus that is.] He muttered to himself inside his mecha.
From his point of view, this elite pilot has no idea how the standard of things works here on Sigmund. But if he can help the kids that the Colonel has guided for half their lives to survive the destruction of their planet, the old man is not going to do a single thing to stop or dissuade him from trying.
Losing so many of his students, even if they were at the very bottom of the barrel by Kepler standards was hard on his elderly heart. The only thing he had to be thankful for was that communications were so limited by Narsian interference that he didn't have to know the full scope of how the planet was doing and could focus just on his academy.
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Once the troops had gotten settled into the mostly empty academy built deep underground in this rural part of the planet, Max got straight to work with the Cadets. They were all eager to get out and prove themselves, but a Crusader Class Pilot held a lot of respect in society, especially one currently active in Special Tactics or Special Forces Unit.
For most of them, fighting alongside such a figure was no more than an idle daydream of heroism, the sort you never expect to come true, the career version of winning the lottery.
Max parked Stalwart in the reinforced hanger while Vincente and Charlie Squad took first guard patrol, accompanied by a full company of infantry from the Landers. Max wasn't in charge here this time, that was Colonel Sanders, but the Colonel respected the autonomy of the Heavy Mecha and let Max set the patrol schedule for his own men as he saw fit.
All the remaining Cadets had gathered here in the auditorium, a drab green bunker with no windows and soft yellow lighting that flickered with the pulse of the Academy's internal generator. It was a bit depressing to look at, but somehow it still reminded Max of home. The slums had the same crappy yellow lighting everywhere since it was the cheapest and most energy-efficient option produced within the Kepler Empire.
The crowd silenced when Max walked in, heading directly for the stage at the front of the room and preparing a speech as he went.
"Greetings everyone. I am Major Erebus Max, Pilot of the Crusader Class Mecha, Stalwart, and commander of the Stalwart Special Tactics Unit. I have been briefly made aware of the situation here, and I am going to be honest with you, it isn't great. Therefore, I am going to give everyone here a crash course in Battlefield survival.
I will teach you smoother operation techniques, rapid targeting tricks, and the essentials of teamwork to ensure that you don't die on your first patrol, should you meet Narsian infantry. All of the things I will teach you are viewed as necessary for becoming an advanced Mecha Pilot, and if some of you prove worthy, I will use my authority to upgrade you to Corvette Class Pilots."
Max's announcement brings a round of cheers to the room. Here, Corvette Class Pilots are the peak for the average citizen, leaders to be respected. Plus, if they live they will be war heroes, and that's bound to count for something.
These naive kids don't yet know the horrors of war, so being a hero seems glamorous to them, not the trauma-filled lifelong nightmare that Max knows underlies the word out in the real world. But if it motivates them, he will help as many as he can to see the dream come true.
"Most of this training can be done through your VR headsets, using a custom program that I brought with me. I am sending it to the academy database now, and then you can return to your dorms and get started. I will be watching everyone's progress, and wing leaders will be chosen tomorrow morning from among those who advanced the most." Max declared, then took a look at the base's wireless network, finding that it was open access with no password required or firewalls around the server, other than a simple read-only restriction.
"Colonel, is this standard for the planet? This level of file security is a joke, even I have managed to plant a file on your servers without anyone noticing and I'm standing in the middle of the auditorium." Max whispers to the Academy's Headmaster, Colonel Sanders.
"Before this, we never needed the security, so most places were pretty lax. There is a scrambling field around the base so that it can't be hacked from the outside though, to prevent industrial espionage. The valuable files are all offline as well." The Colonel responds and Max resists the urge to facepalm in front of the cadets.
No wonder the Lander controls had been hacked, the government here didn't even try to keep anyone from using their authority. Chances are, the Narsians just walked up to a computer someone left logged in, and got straight to work without needing to break the codes at all.
Max quickly informed the Fleet's Central Command of this fact, and his findings on the training of the troops here, then walked to the clearly marked observation room to see how the Cadets were doing. They should be logged in by now, and the first bits of training with General Tennant would be starting.
It wasn't going to be easy on them, the General's personality as programmed into the software was demanding and merciless, but it would adapt to their current level of skills, constantly setting the training at just barely possible.
These kids all knew they were the dregs and needed to work extra hard just to keep up, so Max had high hopes for their work ethic, even after seeing their dismal system compatibility displayed.
He knew they were all D Rank, but some of these shouldn't have qualified at all. D Minus with no Primary stat bonus? Were they just straight lying about the kid having a system? Or another one with a 1.01x modifier. A one percent bonus is barely a primary stat at all. Even for the D minus rank that is pretty sad.
There were some decent ones though, at 1.2x and 1.4x modifiers, which could eventually stack up some pretty respectable physical skills.
One screen suddenly flashes red about fifteen minutes into Max's observation, signaling that the headset had been removed, so Max switched over to the Dorm's internal camera system.
"I am a person, not a worm, I am a Pilot, I can make the Mecha move." The cadet muttered over and over as tears flowed down their face.
"I guess not everyone is a fan of the legendary General's tough love training style." Max shrugged, then changed the settings on the program to give the Cadet Major Payne as an instructor the next time they logged in. She was strict but fair, and much more gentle with the Cadets than General Tennant was, despite having zero tolerance for slacking.
"Now, who will be the next to break? I'm sure more than one Cadet thought they could skate by with the bare minimum." Max said to himself as he smiled at the screens, watching hundreds of cadets giving their all to learn the new techniques that they were assured would save their lives a hundred times over.
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Three infantry units, with the majority of their numbers made up of repair and maintenance technicians, were accompanied by four wings of heavy Mecha as they made their way to the battle site at the Uranium Mine. From here, they would be repairing the Mecha left after the battle and collecting raw materials from bulk drops to send out Mecha and spare parts all over the region in the upcoming weeks.
The swamp had been deemed temporarily cleared of enemy forces by the Mecha units that had landed near here and spread out to the edges of the zone, joining the various forces attacking Narsian entrenchments.
After the last round of Landers, more and more of the giants had started digging in to defend, instead of roaming around looking for targets to attack, a shift in the flow of battle that put the Kepler forces at the advantage.
The Narsians didn't really have a choice though. So many more Mecha had shown up that they couldn't just roam anymore, they had to do all they could just to defend the regions of the planet that they already held.
[General Mons, we have reached the Mine site. How long until your unit estimates that it will arrive?] The head of the repair and design force that had been assigned to the region asked over the secure Command Channel.
The intended recipient was, of course, the Pilot of the Mighty Phalanx Class Carpe Noctem, who had been quietly dropped onto the planet during the last wave. The Narsians didn't know that he was here, nor did most of the planetary forces, since Central Command didn't trust that there weren't still leaks and communications breaches in their ranks.
They now knew how the first attacks had been launched, poor digital security on the planetary side. But despite their best efforts and a change in security codes, there were no guarantees that the Narsian forces hadn't continued to monitor their communications.
To the south of the swamp, in a region where very few Kepler forces had been sent, a large city had been overtaken by the Narsians, and scans showed that the majority of the last wave of arrivals had come there instead of being spread around the planet.
To Central Command, that suggested that they might have brought a transportation device with them between planets, so the Phalanx Class Mecha was sent to eliminate them, but the battle plan called for the Mecha in the area to first prevent any reinforcements from reaching them in time to mount a rescue effort.
At the edge of the battlefield was an enormous crater, left by the repeated bombardment of the same location. At twenty meters deep, Carpe Noctem barely needed to crouch to get itself almost entirely hidden inside the murky waters, preventing the enemy from detecting the oversized threat and making preparations for its arrival.
The repair techs were already hard at work, building up defenses and repairing the more lightly damaged mecha. The thing that caught General Mons' attention wasn't the efficiency of the work though, but the way that the troops obviously and carefully avoided one disabled Mecha, a bone and bronze colored Crusader with blood red hazard stripes on the hull and red unit markings.
The pattern was unfamiliar to him, but the markings said that it came from Abraham Kepler, so the General zoomed in on the placard hung from the Mecha's waist joint, which was still wrapped in bloody razor wire. The hull had received the same treatment, and numerous Narsian skulls and weapons hung from chains and hooks around the pauldrons and top carapace armor.
The nameplate was obscured by the war trophies, but the sign hung on the front was clearly legible.
[Tarith's Rage. Final resting spot of Major Tarith Nico, who felled a hundred Narsian infantry in hand-to-hand combat.]
There was a pile of Narsian infantry nearby, in the shape of a memorial pyre, though the area on top had been cleared away. If the sign was to be believed, that was where the enemy had put Major Nico, before the Kepler forces had moved her back to her Mecha.
General Mons recalled that Tarith's Rage should have had an Ion Destroyer on one arm and an anti-aircraft battery on top, but now it had a pair of Gauntlets, one hastily painted to a bone color to match the rest of the unit, with the fresh paint looking out of place among all the battle damage. It was clear that one of the arms had been broken off and reattached at some point, but somehow, it seemed that the damage was all cosmetic.
General Mons looked closer and realized that the unit itself was repaired. The damage was only one layer thick in the composite armor, with much of it being only paint damage, and all systems looked to be functional.
"What a strange way to build a memorial." He thought to himself, settling in to read a novel on his data tablet while the techs worked.
He was just getting to the good part when the perimeter alarm sounded, meaning that Narsian troops had been found in the area. General Mons ducked a bit deeper into the water, as it was essential that he wasn't detected in advance, and the defensive troops moved out to meet the threat.
It all seemed to be going smoothly until suddenly there were cries that an infiltration unit had entered the base.
Infantry scattered, and Crusaders turned to look, only to realize that heavy weapons would kill as many of their own as the Narsians, due to the close range.
Then suddenly the tomb that was Tarith's Rage moved with a burst of speed, unlike anything that a Crusader Class Mecha should be capable of, grabbing its sword and a battered combat shield from the ground and smoothly removing the heads of the nearest Narsian soldiers.
As the blood flew, the war horn on the mecha, used mostly as a warning siren gave off a piercing wail. Laughter, the mecha was laughing at them as it killed. The blade in its hand was a blur, mostly obscured by the fountains of blood from the dying infiltration unit for the next few seconds, then the weapons clattered to the ground, and the techs found that the Mecha was in exactly the same spot and position it started in, with only the fresh splatters of blood to show that the battle wasn't a hallucination.
[What the feth was that?] Someone called over the radio, and General Mons scanned the mecha again.
No signs of life, minimal power readings, as if it was set on standby mode like any other inactive Mecha, and the hatches were all sealed shut, possibly welded from the inside.
'Ghost. It's the Ghost of Tarith's Rage.' some spoke it aloud, some only thought it, but the consensus was that this mechanical tomb had become sentient.
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After the first day of training inside the simulators, the Cadets were actually looking a lot better than they had when Max first saw them. Even the instructors of the academy had taken the time to log in and learn some of the tips and tricks that Max's advanced training program had to offer since it was all knowledge that they didn't possess.
Some of them were eager to begin day two of the training drills, some were most definitely not, since they tried to hide in their rooms under the thin military-issue blankets, but it didn't take long before the instructors had everyone logged in again and back at work.
The second day of the training brought weapons fire into the mix. Still, the point firing technique that they were all familiar with, but included the proper ways to use the heads-up targeting system to calculate the lead distance on their targets and increase their accuracy.
An energy weapon like the Pulse Laser that these units were equipped with doesn't have a travel time, the pulse reaches the target at the speed of light, but there is a slight delay between wanting to shoot and the mecha actually pulling the trigger which has to be accounted for.
It's a mere fraction of a second, but at longer distances, that fraction can lead to a target being over a meter away from where they were when you started the process, especially for these pilots with slower reflexes and command entering skills.
Since most cadets are naturally competitive, there was an option to turn on the Kepler Standard passing rate simulation as a companion to the pilot. It was just a digital image of the minimum standard to pass the Line Mecha qualification test, but it was much better than these so-called Pilots were.
Better, but not so far that it looked unattainable to them. So, most of them had turned it on to compete against, wanting to prove to these elite forces that they weren't the losers that the army had labeled them as. In fact, if they could meet the standard, Max would agree that the army was wrong, they could meet the standard, it would just take more work to get them there than it took most pilots with higher system compatibility.
Among the infantry ranks, it was well known that competence and System Compatibility were two very different things. While some soldiers might be faster or stronger, the ones that lived were the ones that were the best at their job. The same goes for the Line Mecha, who could be easily crushed by the Narsians if they made a serious mistake in their piloting.
While everyone else trained, Max got to work on editing a special edition of the program for the cadets. This one included the Narsians as a target, getting the freshly trained troops used to the enemy and their standard tactics.
That would be more important than anything else, once they knew how to walk smoothly and target their rifles.
Outside the base, things were fairly calm. One wing of Max's mecha accompanied the infantry on guard duty at all times, taking four-hour shifts twice a day, but there wasn't much to be seen. The valley they were in was fairly isolated, and the terrain naturally guided forces around it and not through it. The only reason the first group came here in such high numbers was that they saw the Landers coming in.
Soon, a whole five days had passed, and the Cadets of the Academy got an official combat order, to go clear out a known Narsian position between them and the swamp. It should be an easy one since the enemy numbers were low, but they were dug in, so there would be resistance.
[Ari, take Alpha Squad and go scout out the location. Captain Catan, your infantry gets to fill in on guard duty for them. Bring extra heavy weapons with you.] Max ordered as the Colonel rolled a collection of balls around in a small tumbler.
"What might that be, Colonel?" He asked, seeing the colored ball that fell out onto the table.
"Random selection. Each ball has a unit number. We will be sending Unit C and Unit F out to retake the position today." The Colonel confirmed, and Max gave him a strange look.
"Double the numbers is for Heavy Mecha fighting the Narsians. Send everyone who is ready if you want most of your cadets to come back." Max corrected his assumption.
"I had thought that since you sent a third, that was all that was needed." The Colonel shrugged, having spent his entire life in academics, growing through the ranks due to his skills with school management and keeping unruly cadets on track.
"It's enough to scout the position, but most likely not enough to take it. Central Command has ordered my men to return before your Unit arrives for the battle, so it's clearly a test for the Pilots you've raised up here. I'll keep my men as close as I can, but they will need some time to reach you in an emergency."
That explanation makes sense to the administrator, even if it doesn't make him happy. But orders are orders, and Central Command is going to be watching closely. For all the Colonel knows they're waiting for his cadets to fail spectacularly so the academy can be reallocated and he can be relieved of command for incompetence. The planetary authority that promoted him is long gone, and the Fleet is not nearly as kind and gentle, nor are their standards as flexible.
[All qualified students, suit up and double-check your mecha for full fuel and munitions. We have an official mission beginning in one hour once Stalwart Special Tactics Unit has scouted the enemy position for us.] Colonel Sanders announced over the school's intercom, bringing the pilots out of their training simulations and rushing towards the hangers, eager to show the world that they had learned the lessons well and were real pilots.
128 Chapter 128
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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Max's scouts headed out right away and made for the suspected Narsian position. From what they could see it was a scout outpost, only intended to relay messages and watch for Kepler Mecha movements through the very rural areas in the foothills that didn't have much strategic value.
As they had feared, the Narsians had dug in, creating trench lines and bunkers that would give them a high degree of defense against incoming fire, while also making them harder for the Kepler forces to spot.
The Crusader Class Mecha has very good sensor systems for detecting signs of the enemy at long range, but Ari knew there was a high probability of the giants noticing her even though she was near maximum sensor range. So, instead of getting close and then retreating, she made a straight pass, as if she was headed into the swamp with a small patrol.
That was a common enough activity since there were multiple forces in the area and the swamp was almost impossible to scan from orbit. An hour later, they turned and came back, again at a fast walk, as if they weren't expecting to find what they were looking for outside of the marshy areas. The second pass was closer, to double check enemy numbers and fortifications, but still, they didn't attract any hostile actions by the Narsians.
[Stalwart, this is Bulwark. We have enemy numbers. Total over thirty hostiles with four heavy weapons emplacements at the designated location. We will retreat out of range and wait for further orders.] Ari informed Max so that he could send out the Cadets.
"You heard the nice young lady. It's time to go. Remember to put mecha with combat shields up front if you have them, they can take at least a hit or two from the Plasma, even if they are the small ones for the Line Mecha." Max called out into the hangar full of Cadets, who were to be led by their teachers.
This wasn't a drill or a training exercise, and nobody wanted to lose friends today, so the Teachers had spent all morning carefully planning their approach. Vincente had made it very clear to them that no battle plan survives first contact, so instead they had focused on getting into position to do maximum damage to the Narsians during that first engagement, then a handful of plans depending on how things went from there.
Once they moved out, Max brought the entirety of the Special Tactics Unit, infantry included, to the halfway point between the academy and the Narsians. This way, if the cadets needed to retreat they would be only a few minutes away and able to intercept the Narsians before they could wipe out the untested youth.
This time the convoy didn't look so horribly inept. The few days of training that they had time for had really smoothed out the controls of most of the Pilots, and the sight brought a smile to the face of Alpha Squad when they passed by.
[Well, they at least know how to walk. Do you want us to come to you or remain here on the flank?] Ari asked when the mecha passed by in the distance.
[Just stay there. I suspect they'll need us sooner rather than later. But if they were actually intending to sneak up on the Narsians, they would be doing an amazing job. None of them is watching the flanks, or scanning for threats, it's like they're out for a walk in friendly territory. The Narsians are going to think they will walk right by until the Instructors give the order to fire.] Max replied with a chuckle.
There was a particular innocence to unskilled Pilots who had never seen combat that just made their piloting look nonthreatening, and these Cadets had it down without any conscious effort.
[Should we welcome them with a couple of Battle Cannon rounds?] Vincente asked once he saw that the light mecha from the academy were almost in position.
Dropping a few shells on the Narsians wouldn't be a big problem, but their orders were to let the Academy take care of it and only intervene in an emergency.
[As much fun as it would be, we've got orders. Wait for them to call for a rescue before we start shooting.] Max sighed, watching the mecha get into position.
They had split into two columns, by class and were splitting off to move to either side of the location where the Narsians were dug in. Even though they were out of easy weapons range, only an idiot wouldn't know what was going on by now.
[They know the Narsians can see them, right?] Ari asked, not believing what she was seeing.
[If they don't they're about to learn.] Paul replied, keeping a close eye on the sensors for signs that the battle had started.
Suddenly the signatures that were the Narsians lit up with energy and heat, then a group of them raced towards the Line Mecha in the distance as the Cadets opened fire.
They might not have experience, but the Instructors at least knew the theory and opened fire from maximum weapons range. That would give them the most time to intercept the giants that were racing to get into close combat with the Line Mecha. One-on-one, the smallest of the Kepler units didn't stand much of a chance against a heavily armored Narsian in close combat, even if they were competent fighters, which very few of these Pilots were.
[Unit 3, focus fire on the targets leaving the trenches. Keep them from reaching us. Unit 1 and 2 keep shooting.] A youthful instructor's voice came over the command channel before he swore and changed his radio to the proper frequency.
From the looks of it, the Line Mecha were doing a good job of avoiding being overrun, even if they were using too many mecha to ensure the charging forces didn't reach them.
Some mecha had fallen to the Narsian heavy weapons, and a lot more were damaged. The closely packed line was just too hard to miss. But the heat signatures in the trenches were becoming scattered, and then they finally broke and retreated into the swamp.
The Cadets didn't pursue the retreating giants and Max decided that was probably a good thing. Without the advantage of numbers and position, they would be doomed. In the swamp, it was just too easy to ambush them.
[Good work Cadets. I will update your training regimen when we get back. Remember to retrieve all dropped equipment and the disabled Mecha.] Colonel Sanders instructed, glossing over the fact that many of those disabled units would have dead Classmates in them.
His vague instruction style is working though, and the Pilots aren't thinking too hard about the reality of the fight and are simply following orders. In only a few minutes they have collected everything they came with and are returning to base.
[Captain Catan. Double tap those Narsians and collect the heavy weapons. Nobody has ever complained that they had too many Plasma Cannons for their bunker.] Max ordered quietly and the infantry commander gave him the thumbs up before going to restock his unit.
The Narsian Plasma Cannons were sized better for a Line Mecha than an infantry unit, but they were self-contained and had a tripod, which made them a great choice for bunkers. Free weapons are the best weapons when you're putting them somewhere that you expect to sustain the most incoming fire.
[They're not even trained, do you think it's alright to keep sending them on missions?] Paul asks Max over a private channel.
[The teachers or the students? Neither has any experience. But they want to fight, and it's not like we have the option to just say no. I've already informed Central Command of the state of readiness here, and they're doing as much as they can, but you have to be ready for them to be fully deployed to a hard target, and us with them.] Max responded.
The lack of communication was becoming an issue for Max. He liked it way better back on Belmont when at least he knew what was going on around him. The limited signals here, intended to keep the Narsians in the dark, also kept him in the dark with no idea what might be coming his way until orders were given.
If only Nico was here to hack the Satellite signals and give him a view of the big picture.
[Major Max, we have more orders. Central Command wants everyone here above the minimum enlistment age to move out towards a conflict in the city in grid ST12. At infantry marching speed, that would be two days. Central Command also had a personal message. Your New Friend from Belmont will be meeting you there.] Ari informed Max the moment that the signal came down from Abraham Kepler.
A new friend on Belmont? That must mean that General Mons was on the planet and they were going for a full-scale city invasion. Emperor Help them, this was going to be a mess.