Chapter 42: Kidnapping XVIII - Chaotic Battlefield

Maxwell continued to climb, but he wasn’t making very good progress against Synton. The laser marksman that supported his leader was surprisingly accurate considering his primary sensors were destroyed, and all of the lateral movements that Maxwell was doing while dodging was not thrust put into gaining distance.

In fact, the distance that he had managed to open initially was rapidly being eaten up while he was avoiding the laser fire.

This can’t go on.

When will backup be here? It shouldn’t be too long—they weren’t too far from the Academy, and even at subsonic speeds it won’t take long for reinforcements to arrive. They just had to hold out until then.

I must change things up if I want to last—I can’t allow that swordsman mech to get any closer, Maxwell thought. If possible, I want to at least take one of them down, too.

But even he knew that was likely a pipedream. However, he dared to dream.

“If you’re gaining on me, then let’s put your speed to my advantage,” he muttered. Abruptly, he changed directions and headed into a dive, weaving around the swordsman mech. Synton kept flying, and for a few precious seconds, they were heading in opposite directions, a vast gulf opening up between them. Grinning, Maxwell took to the open channel. “Take that, sucker!” 

Weaving from side to side, he closed in on the laser mech that had been harassing him. If he wanted to get anything done, he had to first disable it. 

Burst after burst of intense white light shot up all around him, but the closer he got, the worse the laser mech’s aim. There’s a sweet spot between distances where I’m too far to properly target with secondary sensors and distances where I’m too close—no wonder he was so accurate earlier.

If that was so, then he had nothing to fear. With Synton hot on his heels again, Maxwell raised his rifle and took aim, targeting the laser mech’s arms and gun. He jumped when a laser beam finally hit him, the package of heat soaking into his mech’s chest, but he quickly calmed himself.

His targeting system beeped as it determined that he will definitely hit, just as he came to the same conclusion. If both his instincts and his computer agreed, then there was no reason to not take the shot!

His mech pulled the trigger of his rifle, and the barrel of the gun roared as a full magazine of tank shell-sized rounds were dumped out into the laser mech, exploding in black and orange fireworks. 

Ejected casing rained down, but he outpaced them on his way down in his dive.

Maxwell squinted, trying to parse the messages that his sensors were sending him about the mech he hit. He was certain that all seven of his rounds hit, but he had been loading an explosive magazine, not the kinetic penetrators. He couldn’t be sure of the damage. “Did I get him?”

“—Captain, watch out!”

“What?” Even as he questioned the sudden warning from the platoon channel, he nonetheless gave up his previous flight path and switched, not a moment too soon as a pillar of light much thicker and brighter than any previous ones pierced through the cloud of smoke, burning through the dispersing particles. 

The beam carved a deep gash in his mech’s left leg and Maxwell felt the connection that he had with the machinery in the damaged part weaken. He could still move the leg, but that was the extent to which he could move the damaged limb.

With a shiver, he realized that if someone hadn’t warned him, the wrecked part would have been on his chest. While that was where the armor was thickest, lasers had to some extent the ability to bypass armor by heating up the internals through conduction. 

If a laser that thick and intense had hit him, the heat damage would have been almost unimaginable.

That was close... but with that, his laser rifle should be entering a cooldown cycle to prevent overheating, he guessed. For now, he wasn’t a threat...

But should he keep chasing after the laser marksman or turn on his pursuer?

He was currently outpacing the swordsman now that he didn’t have to worry about dodging, but that would change if he turned to shoot.

“No, those aren’t my only choices. We are the Academy Guards,” he muttered. It’s better to support each other—what happened just now proved the importance of teamwork and keeping an eye out for one another.

If he hadn’t received that warning just now, he might have been taken out of the fight.

The problem was, they were fighting piecemeal right now.

His sensors swept the battlefield, tracking down all the mechs in the air. The situation really wasn’t going well. Fighting one against two, most of the Academy guards were having a hard time. The Terror Riders paired up each melee mech with a ranged mech except for a sole pair of leftover ranged mechs.

Being outnumbered was no joke, but stalling was still an option for most of the Guards. Despite the numerical and experience difference, the Guards managed to stalemate the Terror Riders, or be only at a small disadvantage. All of this was thanks to the blow they struck at the beginning.

If they hadn’t managed to take out the enemy sensors right at the beginning, who knew how much worse of a situation they’d be in?

There was one Guard in dire straits, though. She was up against the sole duo of laser mechs, and the constant torrent of laser beams gave her little chance to retaliate. Her pristine white armor was already scorched black from the heat.

“I have to help her,” Maxwell decided. “She won’t last like this.”

Maxwell changed his pathing and flew toward the engagement between his comrade and the pair of laser mechs. Before he did so, he first turned and fired another burst of rounds at his pursuers to fend them off.

None of them hit, but since the Terror Rider leader and his support were busy dodging, he gave him more breathing space.

As he waited for his rifle barrel to cool from firing seven shells in quick succession, he considered his next magazine of ammunition. Explosive or piercing.

Explosives were more disruptive, but piercing had an easier time taking down mechs. On the other hand, it was possible that the shell would fail to penetrate the armor entirely.

For now, I’ll use explosives and create some chaos, then.

He ejected the spent magazine and docked his rifle against the ammunition pack. A few seconds later, he pulled the gun away and attached to his rifle was a fresh magazine of explosive ammunition.

Alright, I’m ready! 

Maxwell took one more sweeping glance over the battlefield before he sent a message to his beleaguered subordinate. “Jamie, I’m coming over. For your next magazine, load piercing!”

“Yes sir!” Jamie replied, her voice strained. She quickly emptied her current rifle in the Terror Riders’ general direction, forcing them to take evasive measures. The torrent of lasers fired at her paused for a moment. 

Maxwell quickly picked up the slack as Jamie reloaded, firing his rifle as well. He took a deep breath, aimed at one of the enemy mechs that had just changed directions. All six shells went toward the mech he picked out, but there was only one explosion.

“Damn, figures. I didn’t aim enough,” he muttered. 

“Don’t worry about it, Captain,” Jamie said. “What’s the plan? Did you already take out your two pursuers?”

“Of course not,” Maxwell muttered as he twisted, dodging a laser beam—one that ended up just barely missing him. He felt bad for betraying the admiration in Jamie’s voice. “However, we need to group up. We need to turn this fight into one large six versus twelve battle rather than a six smaller skirmishes! Remember our training!”

“Yes sir! How should we do that?”

“I’m going to send a platoon wide message to regroup. Our job is to help stragglers break away from their pursuers like I did for you, got it?”

“Sir!”

“Alright. All Academy Guards, to me!” Maxwell shouted. “Fire on my target!” He picked out the closest Guard and his two pursuers: a knight and a laser marksman. Deliberately targeting the knight was stupid, so he marked the laser marksman that had been hiding behind the knight.

As soon as he marked the mech, both he and Jamie opened fire. The mech was engulfed in a series of fiery explosions that sent it spinning before it finally stabilized, but its flight system was smoking. Its speed was visibly slower.

The suddenly freed Guard flew Maxwell’s way to regroup.

But their plan was not without its flaws as the Terror Riders managed to adapt. Almost all of the remaining laser marksmen stopped chasing their foes and instead focused fire on Maxwell. His mech blared an urgent alarm as its armor began to heat up and melt.

“Shit!”

Lasers were mostly inferior in atmospheric conditions, but they were still terrifying weapons when used enmasse. His mech’s combat efficiency dropped by a notch as the heat fried some of his more sensitive and exposed components.

No matter how much he dodged, at least one beam every salvo hit him, even with his suddenly reinvigorated subordinates doing their best to disrupt the enemy marksmen. They couldn’t even keep it up as the swordsmen mechs continued to give chase, pressuring them to rush their shots.

Synton, leaders of the Terror Riders, had been chasing him the whole time. Paralyzed by the multitude of laser beams aimed at him, Maxwell could only watch, helpless, as the swordsman mech caught up.

His gun was empty, in the middle of reloading. Damn, I’m not going to make it in time!

The dense rain of laser beams from every direction ceased, afraid of hitting their leader, but it was already too late. The Terror Rider leader was close now, his long sword almost able to touch Maxwell’s mech if he wished so.

“Captain!”

Right as the swordsman was about to swing his weapon at him, it suddenly aborted its slash and flew up. Rifle fire whizzed past him, two even penetrating the feet of the mech.

Maxwell heaved a sigh of relief, looking around to see who had saved him, but he couldn’t remember the voice very clearly. Mechs were flying all around, and although there were hundreds of meters of distance between most of the mechs shooting at each other with the exception of the knights and swordsmen, the sky was crowded.

What he saw was a battlefield of chaos, a far cry from the organized fighting he envisioned. Instead, everyone shot at everyone else—whenever a Terror Rider saw an opening with a Guard with its back turned, it was fire. It was the same with the Guards against the Riders.

Maxwell couldn’t even tell what was happening as the situation constantly changed. Although the Guards were outnumbered, the chaos prevented any effective response against them as it was each man for himself.

Incredibly, the Guards seemed to be getting stronger as they fought, each mini-skirmish allowing them to come away more experienced and familiar with the tactics the enemy employed.

Finally, the Guards managed to even the fight out to an apparent stalemate where the number of mechs remained constant. However, the Guards would be the ones to fall first, having sustained too much damage from the lightspeed lasers without being able to retaliate effectively thanks to the swordsmens’ interference. 

A few more minutes until reinforcement...

Maxwell gritted his teeth and fired his rifle. The huge bullets dented Synton’s mech, but the exotic-hardened armor of the mech was too tough to puncture. 

“Not too looking for you, eh?” Synton shouted.

A suddenly cry of triumph swept across the battlefield just as Synton uttered those words. The first Guard fell, its flight system destroyed by a swing of a swordsman’s blade. Those thrusters, so resistant against the heat of the laser, were defenseless against the physical blades of the Terror Riders.

“No!” Maxwell shouted, but he was forced to turn his attention back to Synton.

“Why are you so worried? It’s just a fall—not like we wrecked his cockpit,” the mercenary said easily. “Unless your mech is so shitty that a fall like this will break it?”

“You bastard!”

Maxwell raised his newly reloaded rifle at Syton’s mech, but before he could fire, a laser beam pierced through his gun, which promptly exploded when he pulled the trigger. Synton slashed through the smoke of the explosion, narrowly missing Maxwell’s mech. “Give it up, we’re taking the princess home!”

“In your dreams,” Maxwell said, drawing his backup knives. As Syton swung his sword, Maxwell crossed the knives and caught the sword. With a pain in his arm, Maxwell realized that his marksman’s arms were too weak to contest with the force a genuine swordsman can put out. Something in his mech’s arms had broken just then. But what could he do?

His subordinates attempted to help him out, but Synton deftly dodged or blocked the shells with the stronger parts of his armor.

What can I do?

He had been so absorbed in fighting against Synton that he had not noticed a lone mech drawing closer—a friendly mech arriving ahead of the reinforcements.

A Terror Rider knight’s shield suddenly exploded, fragments of metal scattering in a cloud. While the shield was still intact, there was a huge crater in the reinforced composite metal that had been nearly impervious to the Guard mechs’ fire.

A few seconds later, the sound of the sound of distant thunder rolled across the battlefield.