Chapter 41 Not The Good Guys

Max uses his Innate Talent to see what Nico is up to and finds that she's got every single sensor mode pulled up on her screens at once, some overlapped, some separated. Once she's done, and has determined that the area around the lander is starting to get busy as the defenders recover, Max orders the mission to begin.

"Vanguard forward, don't give them time to fully recover."

Nico charges or the door at full speed, light arms fire ringing off her hull. She has her thermal lances in flamethrower mode, burning everything near her as she runs. The first vehicle she reaches is a personnel carrier, which she grabs in a claw and hurls down the street into a tracked vehicle, causing a large explosion and a lot of screaming.

"Russo, get in position. You're a close combat Mecha today." Max calls, firing into a dilapidated brick building, collapsing it across the street on his right to show the advance of enemy armor.

His next two Battle Cannon rounds hit buildings that his thermal sensors indicate have a lot of moving targets inside, while Nico has made close combat with the enemy tanks. They seem to have misjudged the speed of a Kepler Mecha, and her twin claws are flipping and crushing armor assets one after another.

"Incoming Mecha." Nico calls, which seems to wake up Ibanez, but Russo is still just standing at the door to the lander.

A wing of Line Mecha in a pattern Max doesn't know climb the rubble of the destroyed buildings and are met with the firepower of two Battle Cannons. A direct hit from the mighty main weapon wielded by either of the two Crusaders instantly destroys the light mecha, sending shrapnel flying.

That makes Max realize why Nico is throwing ruined tanks everywhere. The thermal lances set the interior on fire and detonate the magazine. Throwing them gets them well away from her Mecha when they inevitably blow up. Plus, the Psychological factor of a sea of flames and tanks being thrown about like toys can't be discounted.

A metallic object flies past Max, who easily sidesteps, but it slams straight in to Russo.

"Turn your external audio off and get to work you fething halfwit." Nico yells at him over the intercom.

Max keeps his on minimum volume instead of muted, but turns it up a little too see what she means. The screams of crushed and burning infantry are sporadically drowned out by the booming of Battle Cannons and the crackle pop of stored munitions exploding.

Russo has a hearing enhancing system ability, he must have had it activated and had gotten himself overwhelmed by the realism of the simulation. Whatever the case, he's in action now, moving into position and firing his Ion Destroyer.

Nico is using her Mecha's claws for their original purpose now, tearing down buildings and burning the contents to create a ring of rubble around their location at such a rapid rate that it only takes a few minutes until she's got a nice rubble wall built.

The burning of the city almost hides the signature of the incoming aircraft from Max, since they're not showing up on radar. But the same is true for his team, the smoke and heat will hide the Mecha.

"Incoming Aircraft. Get your top guns ready. Nico, the satellite feed shows a military unit to the south, head there and try to draw the bombers away." Max instructs.

Nico grabs the burning husk of a tank and throws it down the main street in front of her to absorb any heavy weapons fire that might be directed her way. It makes it most of a block before exploding from impact with an incoming shell.

But Nico is right behind it and the reinforcements are soon engulfed in a sea of fire. The residual burning won't hurt a Crusader Class Mecha, but the heat signature should draw the attention of the incoming aircraft and the smoke will make it hard to visually target the close combat Mecha.

Those Heat Lances are a Horrific weapon against infantry, with a range of over seventy meters and fuel that spits globs of burning liquid and sticks to the target when it makes contact while incompletely burned like that. Max recalls that in his past life such things were prohibited, but in this life they're simply a niche technique of war.

Suddenly a targeting square flashes in Max's vision, indicating a Battle Cannon Target. He doesn't hesitate and a second later a low flying troop transport comes over the horizon and straight into the Battle Cannon round, which punches into the engine and explodes, taking the rotors off the helicopter and sending it plummeting to the ground.

It's not alone though, a wing of bombers are right behind it and moving much faster. The Anti aircraft guns of all three Mecha engage at once, filing the sky with plasma explosions as the jets begin evasive maneuvers. His tracking Talent couldn't seem to lock on to them, until Max recognized that pattern as a set of Kepler Standard evasion maneuvers.

That lets him predict a little better, and he fires the Battle Cannon, knowing the flight time will be over a second, then herds a bomber to the desired location with his top guns.

The round makes its way to the target with a thunderous explosion as the bombers cargo is detonated, the unstable design of the local ordinance lighting up the sky in a greenish burning, low hanging star. Fusion bombs are nothing new to Kepler, but they're normally not deployed against populated areas, and certainly not in the sort of numbers needed to create a blast like that.

The damage sends warning runes flashing all over his display as the entire section of the city is leveled. Fortunately, they were still Kilometers away from the Mecha, so it didn't cost Max anyone in his patrol, but he suspects that hitting the plane with a Battle Cannon isn't found anywhere in the standard procedures.

That has dampened the defenders will to fight and moments later the notification of the end of scenario brings them back to the simulation staging screen.

"You're a Mad Man, you know that right? Even using Ion based anti aircraft against a nuclear bomber is risky, but you actually managed to hit one with a high explosive artillery shell." Russo laughs as the simulators calculate their scores.