To say that Nico was unhappy with the situation was a severe understatement. She hadn’t gotten to interrogate anyone because the ship’s shields hadn’t been able to handle the Disruptors, and the attacks by the Volga on so many other planets had made the investigative work that she was doing mostly useless.

The only redeeming factor was that she had found the sensor frequencies to find their vessels while they were trying to hide and had relayed it to the rest of the human forces, allowing them to see every Volga ship that had come to try to steal secrets or launch surprise attacks on human worlds.

That had led to many of their ships being hit with Disruptors and disabled in an instant before they could even try to fight back, which delighted the locals, who would only have to do minor repairs to get their newly acquired ship functional.

The humans didn’t have any agreements with the Volga after all, and after today, it seemed unlikely that they ever would.

The portal opened in front of Max, and he flew his Mecha through the shimmering hole, arriving at the scene of dozens of small attack ships dropping out of warp to create a defensive formation around the planet.

The rest of the Reavers’ forces arrived seconds behind him, all relatively nearby since they were following his lead for the attack, as Cleansing Light was the only Titan Class Mecha in the force.

[Advance on my mark. Fire at will.] Max ordered and quickly pushed Cleansing Light into Warp and then dropped back to sub-light speeds just in front of the Volga defence fleet.

The six Disruptors flared to life while every laser on his armour picked out satellites and attack drones to blast out of existence. Just like the other ships that the humans had encountered, the Volga interceptors were incapable of defending against the radiation-based energy weapons and went still and dead with a single shot.

Max didn’t even have to slow as he punched a hole through the defences, surrounded by the fire of mighty Void Cannons and Fusion Torpedoes from the Cygnus fleet that had fallen in around him for the attack, getting past the defensive line so that they could target the planetary defences and begin to deploy the landers with their Mecha.

The sight of a thousand main weapons from four Compliance Fleets firing all at once was more than a little impressive, and Max could hear the panic in the transmissions from the surface as the residents realized that someone had come for them and that their loyal defenders were crumbling in seconds under the fury of alien guns.

The broadcasts from the surface didn’t seem to know anything at all about what was going on, but the Compliance Fleets had a broadcast playing on a loop, informing them to either take cover in underground shelters or surrender their weapons and turn themselves in for processing.

The Volga government was trying to reassure them that it was all a mistake right up until the first landers began to drop from the Cygnus ships. The angry streaks of fire as a half dozen Mecha Regiments made landfall at the same time were impossible to mistake for anything but an invasion, and then the Orbital Lances began to eliminate the military bases that Max had identified during his flight around the planet.

An intense battle was beginning to form at the outskirts of the Capital, where his Mecha had just begun to land, so Max dropped out of orbit to join them, targeting the city’s shields with multiple strikes of the Orbital Lance level combined attacks of Cleansing Light, overloading the shield generator and letting the Cruisers and landers reach their marks undamaged.

The Volga didn’t use Mecha, at least not exactly. They used heavily armoured giant animals with a tank turret sort of command center on their back, bristling with weapons. While the combination of technology and local wildlife was a bit strange, he had to admit that it was effective.

Their weapons were strong enough to take out the shields on a Crusader Class Mecha in only one or two shots, and the armour plating was surprisingly durable.

Max lifted his physical shield and hefted his sword to charge ahead of the force, hacking the head off the first creature that he came across, sending it crashing to the ground, where he vaporized the occupants of the carriage with a Disruptor blast.

The next rank charged forward with remote energy shields in front of them, blocking the majority of the incoming fire, while the artillery fire of the Super Heavy Mecha levelled the city around them, clearing a space for them to have a proper fight, despite the densely packed venue, where the Volga lived in a hundred story tall fortress city.

Or, at least, it had been a fortress at one point. The walls were still visible in the distance, but the city had grown well beyond those limits over the years, and the residents who had ignored the initial warnings were running away from the advancing Mecha using every possible form of transport, from hover cars to gravity boards and roller skates.

A horn sounded in front of him, and Max watched as a large section of ground opened up, revealing an enormous Mecha, clearly modelled after the designs of the Hunters but using more conventional materials and not their biomechanical technology.

As it stood up from its storage bunker, a glowing golden light surrounded the Mecha, and it picked up a sword and shield, mimicking Cleansing Light.

Finally, a real fight. Two Titan Class Mecha battling it out in a metropolitan area didn’t bode well for the locals, but if they had done a decent job of copying the design, it should be the first real challenge that he had faced since his new unit was built.

The Mecha raced forward at Max, nearly matching his own speed and clashing swords with Cleansing Light before being driven back by a kick from Max’s right foot, which was followed by a blast of his Disruptor.

The shields on this Mecha didn’t have the same vulnerability as the ships did, and it charged back at him again, firing forearm-mounted Ion Destroyers that Max let impact against the barrier over his shield while he returned fire and moved forward with a flurry of blade attacks.

For a few seconds, the Mecha held its own, parrying every strike, but each blow drove it back a bit further, and Max could see fluids leaking from overloaded systems when it failed to fully withstand his strikes.

A triple blast of his Disruptors made the Mecha’s shields flicker, and he drove his sword forward in a spearing strike, nearly removing an arm from the Mecha and leaving a deep furrow in its armour as the Pilot spun it away to save the armour.

The Volga Mecha was on the defensive, and the Terminus forces were advancing all around their battle as the defenders fell all across the city. The Mecha were blasting their way into the lines of soldiers and armoured vehicles, using the city itself as a defensive barricade, while the two Titans fought for supremacy.

If either fell, so would their force. The Ion Destroyers of the Volga Titan would fell even the Super Heavy mecha of Max’s force in a single shot, and if Cleansing Light were left alone, Max would wipe out thousands of vehicles every second with his Laser fire, even without deploying the Disruptors.

The two Titans locked blades again, and the Volga defender twisted to the side, falling to one knee so that Max didn’t blast it apart with his Disruptors, but that left it vulnerable to Max’s shield, and the plate of armoured alloy crashed down on its knee, mangling the left leg of the Mecha in a scream of tearing metal.

The Volga Mecha took to the air, trying to blast at the Super Heavy units of the Terminus Trading Company force, but Max was quick to intercept, sacrificing his energy shields and taking some superficial damage to keep his units alive.

The Volga unit took advantage of the distance he had created and went to warp right there in the atmosphere, tearing apart the air around them and levelling fifty city blocks from the distortion caused by the energy field.

Max was quick to give chase, but he retreated to the upper atmosphere first, and the damaged Volga Mecha was long gone by the time he found its trail again.

[Cleansing Light to all units. A Volga-controlled Titan Class Mecha has escaped from the battle, destination unknown. Keep alert for its arrival, and I will redeploy the instant that it is located.] Max informed the human fleet while he positioned Cleansing Light over the city, maximizing the utility of his targeting skills for his allies.