With roughly two hundred thousand Jotun being deployed, the King needed to prioritize. After the efforts of Clone, Europe and the North Americas were devastated, as was Russia. The primary centers of organized resistance would be China and India, which naturally had not been easy places for Clone to infiltrate heavily, and the western United States, which had simply been lucky enough to avoid serious harm.

The process would be fairly simple. The army would split into six Claws, of course, each with over thirty thousand Jotun and six thousand Attack Craft. Two Claws would assault the Western united states. Two claws would land in Asia and move southward into China and India. The remaining two would move through the relatively undamaged African and South American continents.

Depending on the level of resistance they met, units could be transferred from one to another; but it was highly unlikely they would meet much at all. Jotun studied the maps thoughtfully. The forces moving over Africa and South America would likely simply roll across the continents with ease; then the African contingent could handle what was left of Europe, and the South American contingent could eradicate what cockroaches survived in the ruins of eastern north america.

Obviously, they wouldn't bother with the smaller villages. But if they razed the farms, destroyed the cities and factories, melted the military bases.... well. This war should be over within the day. Perhaps two, at most.

***

The Jotun drones were fairly small, silvery orbs; AI-driven devices built to provide extended sensor range, and to act as weapons; moving in and self-destructing just before impact to remove soft targets. They excelled at entering buildings or vehicles to kill the occupants if someone were foolish enough to leave a hatch or door open; and at allowing a 6-Jotun squad to project force over a wide area.

As the twenty-four ACs descended on the port city of Gqeberha, the populace on the ground could see them, and panic; without even noticing the tens of thousands of drones that had already come before; mapping out targets. The craft descended from the upper atmosphere; ugly, blobby structures of blue metal with weapon turrets pointing about; and began firing long before the locals could meaningfully return fire.

They stopped roughly 800 meters above the ground, on the outskirts of the city; and started to steadily progress southward; the Drones spotting for the heavy weapons fire raining down. While a few shots did land among the crowds of fleeing civilians, they mostly focused on the rare armored vehicle, anyone with a weapon, gas stations, businesses...

A group of aircraft came soaring in from the north; twelve modified Gripen attack craft; originally Swedish in manufacture, but modified with Jotun-derived equipment over the decades; clearly expecting their weapons, designed to target exactly such craft, to do the job here.

Jotun tactics were familiar; the Gripen were equipped with both anti-drone flak shells, which would be fired just ahead of the advance, to hopefully clear a path to get close; as well as anti-Jotun missiles, fully capable of evading countermeasures and scoring a kill.

All twelve pilots had hope; they were only outnumbered two-to-one, and thought their advanced weaponry would carry the day. From the ground, their approach had much the same effect; seeing the sudden advance clouds of smoke of the flak rounds moving towards the Jotun, the flashes of exploding drones, the aircraft moving in, firing missiles...

The ACs immediately lifted up, maneuvering perfectly to evade the incoming fire; hovering almost in place a few kilometers up as the drones were ordered to evade; and then swarm in behind the incoming craft.

Despite the abrupt movements, and the relatively inferior composition, the missiles were well-designed; they'd been tested and optimized to seek out exactly these targets with decades of work. Three of them actually reached their targets, as the rest went wildly off-course; and as the wreckage of the twelve fighter craft scattered across the sky, to rain down on the city below amidst clouds of drone fragments.. one of the ACs went with them; two of its companions listing, starting to fall below the others, as broken chunks of blue metal scattered across the sky... and the crew of the AC fell towards the city. Stunned at first, simple free-falling; but after a few seconds, recovering, aiming for the ground.

Within seconds of the aerial assault, the now-23 Jotun craft continued their sweep; the drones picking targets, and plasma fire raining down from the sky, as the crowds below ran for cover. A unit of armored ground vehicles emerged from a garage, weapons aimed at the sky... only to be met by oncoming plasma fire even as they came out; the last three vehicles trapped in the garage by the wreckage of those that came before.

On the other side of Gqeberha, when they reached the coast, they came to a stop, hovering in midair; a variety of cargo ships and fishing vessels were at port, some already attempting to flee; only to be met with a few precise plasma blasts that started them sinking, the crew abandoning their vessels. For the moment, it appeared as if the operation would be a relatively clean sweep for the Jotun. Thousands of humans slain, hundreds of vehicles, a dozen aircraft; for the cost of one AC and some injured soldiers; who even now were headed north to a pickup location.

The moment passed with a scream of terror; and the sudden bursting in midair of hundreds of silvery drones shattering, fragments raining down on the crowds. The people on the ground didn't know which way to run; skeletal blood-red machines, each adorned with a golden hammer and sickle logo on the chest and , were marching out of the ocean; firing before they were fully out of the water; and the hovering fleet of Attack Craft suddenly falling; plasma fire emerging in random, sporadic bursts as it seemed all twenty-three had been simultaneously struck down.

A child, hiding beneath a nearby bench, stared in awe as a massive blue craft slammed into the building across the street; a glass pane shattering across the bench he was tucked beneath glass shards ending up embedded in the arms he covered his face with; and the soldiers inside began to emerge, shrieking in their awful alien language... only to fall even as they emerged, the sound of gunfire resounding through the street. A single machine; seven feet tall, but with limbs no thicker than the girl's; was carrying a rifle that must have been four feet long, aiming it directly at the vehicle's hatch; placing a single round through each alien head that emerged, the weapon glowing red-hot, literally smoking.

As the last of the alien corpses rolled limply down the pile of rubble to the street, a low hum emerged from the fallen AC... and a brilliant flash of light.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

From a distance, Ascension studied the ruins of the town; and suddenly its speakers picked up a distinctive metallic 'clank'. A single 'Port Elizabeth' sign; a relic of the old colonial era; had been dislodged from somewhere, tossed over a kilometer into the ocean, and embedded itself by misfortune in one of its shoulder joints. Another unit slowly moved across the ocean floor towards it; but it was too late for that particular bot to be anything but scrap, as water flooded its internal compartments.

The port was no more. Thousands of people had died. Every one of its units that had left the water had been reduced to slag, and would be retrieved and recycled for scrap. The net cost; eighty-two Ascension units for more than triple that in Jotun warriors; would be considered excellent if not for the loss of the human life and production capacity.

One of its own flying drones; larger and more primitive than the Jotun swarm, but equipped with ranged weaponry that likely made it more effective; began to sweep the area; and pinpointed seven Jotun survivors. The crew of the AC which had been shot down by the local air force. Currently fleeing into the jungle.

The few surviving locals watched with mixed feelings as more of the machines walked out of the water; the Jotun craft had destroyed not only the southern half of the city, but the rain of broken aircraft debris had devastated the rest, even places where the plasma hadn't rained down to destroy their way of life. Their attitudes changed dramatically when they split off; larger, bulkier machines; heavy, squared-off limbs looking like a giant humanoid chunk of earthmoving equipment; advancing on the wreckage.

At first, it was fear. Rifles were raised; a few even fired. Men grabbed pickaxes, shovels, anything at hand to fight; only for the machines to ignore them... and start carefully moving rubble to reveal survivors... and corpses.

The more slender machines continued on, rifles raised; scanning the area. They seemed split into two distinct units; ones with lighter, shotgun-like weapons, built for destroying the light scout drones; and heavier rifle-using units designed for the ACs... and the Jotun themselves.

***

For Hajko, this was a nightmare. He'd been eager to come to ..Earth.. as it was called now. The reports that the Titans had somehow fallen had led to thousands of volunteers for this expedition; generally considered a way for the King; and the Jotun people as a whole; to undo one of their two great shames; the only times they'd ever been defeated in war since emerging into the void.

They knew the humans had Jotun tech; obviously it was dangerous; the aircraft had proved that. But as he crawled into a dank hole in the jungle, cursing his Claw-mates, he knew just as well that this entire invasion was a foolish idea. How many surprises would this place have? And they knew there was at least one Titan still here. The intel had said nothing about hostile AI!

Finding an uprooted tree that something had crushed beneath it, he slid into the muddy hole the tree had formed when it was pushed out; and tugged nearby brush atop himself for concealment. Send a single ping to notify the fleet of his location, along with an update he then laid, limp, at the bottom of the hole.

Hajko had been in... three wars now. Four, counting this one. He'd fought AI before; but... AI was chancy. There were so many jammers, so many countermeasures that might work, and others which would be completely useless. Normally they studied, picked one apart, and used what they learned to make general countermeasures. A case like this... they'd have to just try things and see what worked.

Hopefully the locals had a countermeasure the Jotun could copy; they must, otherwise the things would have overrun the planet and made the Jotun's arrival pointless.

He held his breath, turning on stealth mode. The gravity of this hellscape of a world; hot, heavy, humid, dismal; suddenly seemed to be pressing down on him, making it hard to breathe. It was an illusion; his suit's servos did nothing for the compression of his chest. It just felt worse because now all of his limbs.. especially the broken ones... felt as if he were dragging around a ton of rock. The comforting coolness of his suit began to dissipate; but... the flying dull red machine that was looking for him... flew right by.

He grimaced. Three of his limbs were broken. He could move, at best, half of his speed; and if not for his suit, he'd be in need of emergency aid. His carapace had hundreds of tiny cracks, his blood had pooled up inside his gauntlets, only to be forcibly cleaned and recirculated while his suit was on; now the bleeding had stopped. It still hurt, though.

Knowing that the machines wouldn't spot him in stealth mode, with cover, however, was useful intel. Not worth the death of hundreds of Jotun... but useful.

***

Eyeball braced himself against a tree as he looked up at the jungle canopy. He had been walking to the east... and he could hear it. Explosions. The thick underbrush prevented him from seeing anything that far away, but the animals fleeing past him and the sounds of gunfire made it clear.. he was approaching a fight.

Suddenly, he saw... a drone. Silver-white, not much bigger than his head... was about to fly through the trees in front of him. He ducked down behind a nearby tree for cover, keeping the tree between himself and the drone... and had to keep shifting, moving, as another, and yet another, moved through the forest. He glanced at their path... Ahh. They were moving towards the escape pod. They might have been painted to reduce how easy they were to spot, but nothing was perfect.

After the first few drones flew by, he saw a group of six, moving in a line abreast through the jungle; while he saw them before they reached line-of-sight, he knew that he couldn't actually evade them; these things were searching for him. Either the escape pod, whoever was in it, or both.

He took a deep breath, and cycled a few 10mm round magazines, setting them in his belt... and then leveled both the tenner and the 40mm pistol in the proper direction.

As the drones emerged, he shot them down, one by one with rapid, precise shots; and as the ones that had already flown by returned, he kept right on doing so; a dozen drones. Fifty drones. He switched to fragmentation grenades on the 40mm so that he could wipe out an entire cloud of the things with a single shot; and started advancing.

The drones were well-programmed; or under active command. They started trying to drop in from above. Circle around behind. Then he heard it... up overhead, one of their ACs was approaching. He dropped the tenner, letting it hang from a wrist strap hooked to his prosthetic dialed up the gauss rifle mounted inside the extradimensional space.. and as he kept nailing drones, sometimes wasting a frag shell to take out just one or two in order to save time swapping; he raised his palm, centering it at just the right spot... and just as the craft became visible, getting a line-of-sight to burn him down through the canopy... he fired.

A vivid streak of light through the air. The AC listed abruptly, just before firing, sending a wave of plasma hundreds of meters off to its left, before slamming into the trees, burning a path through a few dozen.

Abruptly, the drones stopped acting so intelligently; all of the nearby units simply swarmed in on him; a single frag shell would take out dozens at a time, all of them coming from the direction of the earlier gunfight; the forest was ablaze in dozens of places ahead of him, burning debris from the machines was scattered everywhere; and as it became hotter, the fire spreading, and Eyeball started slowly moving towards the downed craft... the numbers started to dwindle.

His 40mm barrel was starting to overheat by the time it stopped. He'd fired hundreds of shells; most guns would have already started to melt, or deform at this point. He checked its status; after ten seconds without more drones, he activated a cooldown cycle; the tubes running through the barrel started to flood with liquid; the fluid spraying out over a nearby bush, instantly igniting it with the temperature as the heat slowly dissipated with a few gallons of coolant running through the mechanism.

He kept the tenner up, just in case... and started advancing towards the fallen craft. Ideally, there would be wounded that could be used to lure in their allies. After all... he had Jotun to kill.