Chorus Of Death

"Squad Verkfall-4, report."

Gunnar, Sutekh Abrax and I all used our thrusters sparingly as we drifted through the long expanses of emptiness that were between each Uma, the blood and gore on our mech's hulls freezing up and flaking off as we made our way to our second target.

Recognizing the cold voice of Foringi Hela, I opened the comms and responded "Uma 023 has been killed, Foringi Hela; we are en route to Uma 029, a minute out.", earning a soft grunt from the serious shipmaster and causing us to hold back on the thrusters just a little as we anticipated being rerouted to somewhere new.

"Maintain heading and join up with Squad Verkfall-3. They should be emerging from Uma 029 within the minute; then make haste to the pinged target and bring it down. We cannot have this Assault Class Uma drifting around for much longer."

"Affirmative. If I may, Foringi Hela, are there many of these Assault Class Uma's?"

The woman remained silent for a few seconds before responding "A dozen, perhaps more; they are spaced out though, and are being picked off as we speak. Foringi Hela out.", causing the comms to crackle before I closed them completely.

"An Assault Class... Uma?"

Gunnar's confused voice filled the silence, followed by the smooth voice of our 'cousin' as he replied "That is correct, Pilot Gunnar. It protects the swarm during transport and contains thousands of space ready bioforms that can - and will - tear through spaceships to reach the biomass inside."

"And since we are all here, within this web of Uma, the battleships cannot open fire again without risking all of us, so it becomes our duty to put these aliens down. You have been trained in space combat, correct?"

The man let out a booming laugh that chased away his prior confusion, and as soon as he was finished he said "Aye, that I have Einherjar! Just have to admit I haven't brushed up on the Chukanid classifications is all! Ah, I used to be deployed amongst the Aelgairia's Clusters, so all I did was eat, sleep, and fight in space! Good times, good times~!"

His cheerfulness was rather infectious as he laughed over the comms, helping this minute pass by rather quickly before he asked "Though... I must ask this too; why weren't these Assault Class Uma's taken care of before we got here?"

"They are almost identical to their normal brood mates, and the only way to discover their class specification is if we get closer; that is when they unleash the swarm of Tobu Class Chukanids that were bred for this sort of thing. Therefore the initial barrage we unleashed wasn't capable of destroying those Assault Class Uma's since we couldn't figure out where they might be."

Sutekh Abrax fell quiet when three other mechs burst out of the Uma in front of us and flew to our side, the two descendants of the 'Pharaoh' and another member of the Vel Risi giving us the universal salute - sweeping their right hand over to their chest before sharply returning it to their side - as they greeted us.

Linking into their comms, we turned and flew as one towards the fleshy hulk that was dispersing a myriad of aliens into the battlefield, each sleek, sharp Tobu darting towards any non Chukanid it could see, and as soon as we entered their range they beelined towards us.

With many powerful guns on our side, we stabilized ourselves and raised our weapons, our mechs fingers squeezing the triggers of these giant firearms as we sent dozens of shells ripping through space into the cloud of Tobu that flew towards us.

The closer they got the more dangerous they became, their long and thin lances pointed straight at us and concealing a reservoir of acid that could chew through armor rapidly; they even spat it on occasion, but here in space that wasn't a viable strategy for them.

Even still they were deadly critters, and when they swarmed you with hundreds, if not thousands of bodies willing to die if it meant the greater good of the Chukanids could survive, they were extremely terrifying enemies that needed to be eradicated.

Unleashing a barrage of Blitz rounds, I could only watch as a few dozen of the things died only to be replaced as the swarm flew closer, each bullet I shot bringing down a handful of them while the shells that my comrades shot blasted apart even more, ripping some holes into the swarm that took a moment to be replaced.

It was seemingly unending, and as soon as the Tobu got within a half mile of us the pressure that such numbers exuded only grew, though the blips on radar showed support racing in to join us from many different angles.

A dozen mechs joined in the fray, unleashing a barrage of bullets and shells into the swarm and diverting their attention from just us to everyone else too, giving us the opportunity to breathe a little as we engaged our thrusters and created more space between ourselves.

Spreading out so that the Tobu couldn't easily get to all of us at the same time, we began to expend all of our ammunition as we tallied our kill counts even more, each death getting registered as the onboard AI we had operating inside of our mechs kept track for us.

The comms crackled again as more people began to speak, the battle cries, hymns, prayers and reassurances flooding over the open comms as we all came together to eradicate this blight of the universe, turning a wide expanse of space into a kill box as we overlapped our fire and decimated the aliens.

And yet the more we killed the more aliens came out of the Uma to replace them, and soon enough a second Uma slowly made its way over, opening its gills and allowing another stream of Tobu to emerge into space, and now we were being outnumbered far too quickly...