Temporary regiment HQ on Horth Hill

Colonel Mackenzie looked at the map display in his augs with some worry. The reinforcements he expected had been diverted to fight off Macks landing closer to the city center. His forces had been pushed out of the center of Swartz Bay and were barely hanging in on Horth Hill, despite the high ground giving them an advantage.

Fortunately there had not been further landings in his area, but being encircled from the south was a very real threat. At the moment, the Macks were mostly pressing from the southeast, where they had landed at the Blue Heron Basin. But HANAF troops were thinly stretched between Horth Hill and Victoria Airport. If the Macks received reinforcements they might easily break through towards the west and cut his command off.

A call from Captain Miller interrupted his thoughts. “Sir, the chicks from Vanguard Command have arrived!”

“What? Chicks?”

“Uh, sorry, two young women. They have a bunch of tame Macks with them, twenty-eight by my count. Creepy to have those in our position, but so far they are well behaved.”

Captain Miller allowed himself to relax a little. It did not last long though. A few minutes later, he received a message that two of the huge Type 32s had been spotted arriving at Heron Bay. And all of the heavy hitters among the Magical Girls were swamped with urgent missions elsewhere.

He called his brigade commander anyway to ask for a strike on the Thirty-Twos. The answer was disheartening. “Sorry to leave you hanging, but more vital targets near the city center are under immediate threat. You are on your own for now.”

A few hundred meters southwest of Horth Hill

In our corner of the front it was quiet. Too quiet. The Macks seemed to hold back and wait for something, and I could not imagine it would be good for us.

Time dragged on, and it was almost dark by now. Then two new icons symbolizing heavy units suddenly appeared on my minimap, among the hordes of Macks already there. As I focused on them, a little popup identified them as Type 32s. One of them was blinking, switching between red and blue. I asked Elya “What’s with the blinking Thirty-Two?”

It is the one we hacked on San Juan Island. You can remotely take it over, if you so wish.

I flew the Spectracopter closer. The big Mack was operational again, except for the one cannon we had destroyed before. That left it with only five of the deadly weapons. Which was five too many on an enemy Mack. As I was still watching, the whole swarm of Macks started to move eastwards. In our direction. But we still had a few minutes before they would arrive.

I took control of the hacked Thirty-Two and dropped into detail mode on my C&C suite, where I could do some serious micromanagement. I designated the guns on the other Thirty-Two as primary targets and ordered mine to attack.

Bright muzzle flashes lit up the night sky as grenades from my Thirty-Two thundered into the gun turrets of its counterpart. Which quickly reacted and returned fire. Heavy grenades ripped furrows into armor and scattered sparks and debris across the sky. The blasts shattered windows at nearby buildings, and glass shards rained onto the streets.

Soon it turned out that shooting up the turrets first was the winning tactic. The turret emplacements were weaker points than the hull armor, and soon the turrets on the enemy Thirty-Two fell silent. Those that were pointing in the direction of my unit. The enemy Thirty-Two started to turn around to bring its guns on the other side to bear.

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I did not let it. Driving my own Thirty-Two into its side, I gripped the front track with the arms of my Mack and tried to rip it off. Unsuccessfully. The other Mack impotently flailed at the armor of mine, but failed to do much damage. Meanwhile, the guns of mine were at an angle where they would not be that useful either.

Essentially we were at a stalemate. But the other Thirty-Two could and did randomly shoot up the surroundings with its remaining three guns. Fountains of flame and debris erupted from the nearby highrises.

Meanwhile, the first Macks approached our position. I heard Wendy yelling ”Let our Macks take the first wave!”

She skillfully directed our captured Macks to the weakest points in the barricade, where the enemy Macks were most likely to break through. Good girl, she was growing into a competent Mack commander.

Our remaining Battlecats stayed in the positions I had assigned to them.

I told Elya “Keep the Thirty-Twos in the clinch!” and turned my attention towards nearby events.

Next to me, our remaining Battlecats opened fire. I ripped myself away from the sweet sight of dying enemies and scrambled onto a container at the barricade. Seconds later, dozens of metal squids crashed into the piled up dumpsters and bicycles we had repurposed to slow down the threat. From the corner of my eye I saw a few of the dog-sized Ones trying to circumvent our position, but they tried at a well defended point. Machine gun salvos cut them down.

From my elevated position, I could reach the Macks with the special tasers built into my armor. Once again, lightning crackled over the Macks I targeted and more often than not, Elya managed to take control of them.

I concentrate my efforts on Fours at the fringe of the attacking horde, from where they could betray their former comrades by stabbing them in the back. That caused considerable disorganization in said enemy Macks, greatly hampering their attack against our barricades. HANAF soldiers used that to great effect. With their heavy machine guns, they carved deep gashes into the flood of the metal pests. The Battlecats took care of the rest.

Soon the Macks had to climb over the bodies of their fallen buddies. That only made them into better targets for the Battlecats and the HANAF soldiers. Until their ammo ran out.

At this point we were down to twenty surviving Macks of mine versus about fifty enemy Macks. But the barricades still made for a nice choke point and kept the attackers from simply overrunning us. I called to Wendy “Can you fetch the remaining ammo from the van? I’ll handle things here!”

“Going!” she replied and ran.

I alternated between adjusting the positions of my defending Macks and zapping slash hijacking more of the attackers. Two tense minutes later, most enemy Macks were down and I sent mine on a counterattack, while Wendy arrived with the last reloads for our three remaining Battlecats.

Another minute later, the area in front of us was cleared of enemies and my forces had increased to thirty-one Macks. Picasso sauntered from captured Mack to captured Mack and gave them the Vanguard Command warpaint. I was sure that Elya made him act that way on purpose. It was quite cute.

Immediate threats banished, I turned my attention back to the Thirty-Twos that I had left in aggressive hugging mode. They had dug themselves partly into the ground with their churning tracks, with the enemy Thirty-Two already tilted at a thirty degree angle. I chose a different approach to the fight. Instead of simply pushing forward, I started lifting the other huge Mack by its tracks. Under massive clanging and creaking, I managed to heave the enemy Thirty-Two up until it flipped over.

Checking the nearby area with the Spectracopter, there were still a few groups of Macks around that seemed unsure of what to do. Apparently they had no programming that would tell them what to do in a fight between titans.

I took great pleasure in shooting each of these groups with a well placed grenade from my Thirty-Two’s cannons.