[Is there a chance that the city's perimeter is an optical illusion fooling our scans? The Omwat have already shown remarkable camouflage technology.] Max asked as he considered his next course of action.
[The chances are low, but with what we have seen, I wouldn't say the chance is zero.] Nico responded grimly.
[We have found multiple groups of Omwat, including signs of infantry, but we don't have clear enough data to determine which, if any, of them might pose a combined threat to Cleansing Light.] She added a few moments later.
[Well, Feth. Keep Drones near my position. I am going forward to see what the actual situation is.] Max replied, unwilling to leave a city to be invaded, even if it might be just a trap.
Instead of staying low to avoid notice, this time Max took Cleansing Light up to twenty thousand meters altitude and flew toward the city as fast as he could inside an atmosphere, arriving at the center of the city in under a minute.
The report seemed to be incorrect at first, but the communications were erratic, and the orders didn't make any sense. They would countermand each other only seconds after being issued, none of the defenders knew where they were going, and from the sound of it, the shifts hadn't changed yet.
Max had a strong suspicion that he knew what had happened here. The Omwat had infiltrated the command structure and were sending fake signals out to the defenders, causing chaos in preparation for a full-scale attack.
[Nico, send a jamming signal over the whole city. I don't want them to hear anyone but me until I am finished.]
The telltale buzzing on the common channels began a second later as Nico used the drones to activate the jamming signal, and Max got to work.
[City Defenders, this is the Titan Class Cleansing Light. I have taken command of this location and commandeered all communications. Omwat infiltrators were causing chaos with your chain of command, and all previous orders are now negated.
All Command officers will exit their Mecha and reveal their faces to their unit, then turn to face my Mecha. You have one minute to comply. All who do not will be taken as Omwat spies and eliminated.] Max ordered.
That stopped almost all the Mecha in their tracks, and Max made note of those who kept moving and where they went.
One after another, cockpits popped open, and the officers stepped out, waving at their troops, then facing up toward Cleansing Light.
[Nico, send those who we have recorded individual orders to inspect their units as well. Even a few Mecha in a unit hiding Omwat pilots will be an issue.]
Max made records of the units that complied while Nico sent out the messages until the minute was nearly up.
[Ten-second warning. This is not a drill or a practical joke. Those who have not revealed themselves will be fired upon in 4, 3, 2, 1.]
A flurry of commanders exited their Mecha in those few seconds, but the final warning also brought a flurry of Mecha fire toward Cleansing Light, which Max returned with blasts from his Disruptors, wiping out entire units of Mecha at a time.
That got a lot of the units out of their Mecha to meet their Commanders in person, but it also started a number of small firefights among the Mecha units, both in the trenches and spread throughout the city.
The chaos in the city alerted the Omwat forces outside the city, and they dropped their stealth to begin charging the trenches.
There seemed to be almost an entire Mecha Regiment left, though some of them were missing weapons and charging into melee instead of opening fire from a distance like the others. They must have been repelled previously and had regrouped to counterattack.
The entire city fell into a running battle, and Max turned his weapons on the locations where the Mecha units, who didn't stop moving, had retreated to. They seemed to be mostly hangars and barracks, so Max didn't immediately fire on them, but he sent a signal to the defense forces that suspicious units had entered those locations.
His Disruptors didn't stop firing, but soon the scrum was too intermingled for him to use the devastating weapons without hitting allies, so Max began issuing orders to keep the lines secure.
[Two Reserve Units to the west trenches, identify yourselves visually on arrival. I will be watching. One Heavy Mecha wing from squad One Seven to the barracks at the location I have pinged on your map. I have already confirmed your identity. Clear all suspicious forces. North Trench, keep your heads down. I will clear the incoming Mecha wave.]
Max used all six Disruptors on a wide pattern to take out five kilometers of Omwat Light Mecha that were heading toward the city, leaving only the more heavily shielded units for the defenders to deal with.
Max targeted units outside the city every time he found one large enough to be worth his time, as well as every unit that he found trying to infiltrate using stealth. If he could convince them that everyone could see through it, they would give up on the practice for the duration of the battle, and it would make life much easier for the defenders.
The fury of the battle annihilated the meticulously groomed forest and pristine beaches surrounding the city, leaving the former resort city a shining beacon in the rubble, but within two hours, the defenders had brought the chaos back under control, and they had distributed new tracking devices to their units. They had found an alternate way to overcome the stealth, using radar imaging overlayed with a visual image, to find hidden targets.
The cloaking mostly blocked radar signals, but that was the key to the detection method. Range Finders would read infinite when they scanned past the location, so the defenders would know something was up and fire at it.
Some were false signals, and some were misses, but if they hit, the enemy would become visible again, and that was good enough for them.
They had also changed their helmet settings, eliminating the anti-glare function, and letting their allies see their faces. Most humans were too tall to be mistaken as Omwat, but it made the troops feel more secure to be talking face to face after all of the betrayals that they had suffered today.
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