The little lizard lashed out at me, screaming obscenities as they waved over to the bodies in the warehouse.

“You fuckers killed my dad and my uncles! Go burn in you invading scum!”

A few more bullets pinged off my jaws peeking down through the doorway, one shot nearly hitting the scout drone I kept on my head. The other robots waiting in a line beside me stood motionless and nearly completely silent, apart from the whirr of the medium and large units’ engines. I knew even the smallest caliber guns on the combat robots could pierce the thin, corrugated walls of this building, if they decided to fire. If I put weight behind the tingly feeling I felt looking at the pistol-wielding teen, marked red on my minimap, they would be shredded before they even realized they were dead. That knowledge was ingrained into me without any visual or vocal cues from my system.

I let go of my eye triggers, my energy beams disarming themselves. Inspecting the room, I found several weapons lying around, which, while they couldn’t damage me, could potentially knock out my smaller robots with a particularly lucky shot.

“[Disarm] the , “ I said, my intentions transferring through my escorts. “[Avoid Civilian Casualties].” It was reassuring to see the system recognized these command words.

One of my small, bipedal combat robots broke from the formation, pluckily striding over to the warehouse entrance like an overly leggy ostrich. It ducked down to enter the doorway, before returning to its normal height and moving towards the lizard, whom the robot towered over. The robot took a step back, compressing its body down to almost ground level, before smoothly pushing itself into the teen, knocking them onto the ground. Their hand was still locked around the gun in a death grip.

Extending back to its full height, the robot lifted a leg and slammed its digitigrade toes onto the hand with a metallic snap. The lizard screamed as the foot lifted to reveal thoroughly crushed metal scrap wrapped by a now boneless claw. A larger, bandaged individual who was huddled with the others in the corner of the warehouse saw and heard this, and reached their undamaged arm over to pick up a long gun leaning on the back wall. Their icon turned red as well

The small combat robot crossed the entire room in a single leaping stride and punted the gun into the wall, the lizard man's shoulder dislocating in the process as the rifle was literally embedded halfway through the sheet metal, the small combat robot’s foot punching through as well with its followthrough. Now everyone was screaming, as the robot literally tore an entire section out of the wall as it pulled its leg back, before turning to the assorted weapons on the ground, squatting down with its right leg held rearwards, and swiveling its side-mounted gun.

The dark room was illuminated as a stream of 5mm rounds sequentially tore through the weapons. The roar echoing through the room made the screams appear as if silent before just as quickly the firing stopped, and the wailing began as the lizards clutched their ears and eyes. The lustrous, white casings sprayed across the floor and onto some of the covered bodies let out some slight whiffs of smoke, as they scaled over as their metal cooled down.

With the new knowledge of how to control my units, I gave the command to continue on.

“[Everyone move] to the ”. The green squares and triangles on my map streamed through the buildings in the direction of the black cylinder, including the triangle right next to me in the room full of blues and two yellows. The small combat robot jogged through the room, ducking again to get under the doorframe. The civilians startled as I retracted my snout from the building, as I finally walked around the block to the field on the other side.

The cylinder sat, dug quite deep into the field, its end pointing away from the impact trench, unlike mine. Looking further down the carved trough in the rich black soil, I could see an area of roughly intact crops near the middle, where the several thousand ton transport pod must have skipped across the dirt as if it were a stone slung on water. An absurd sight to imagine. It must have lost enough energy in the process, or the dirt loose enough, that the cylinder ended up falling over forwards. It would’ve saved the hassle I went through to climb out of the hole though.

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It didn’t look like they had time to unload the items as I did, given the lack of a pile at the cylinder’s base, but walking up, I was given the option to [Interact] with the pod. With its owner nowhere in sight, it appeared I had ownership of the remaining contents, which were quite bountiful indeed. They had left a pair of medium combat robots identical to my set, in addition to the vast majority of their refined resources and industrial equipment. There were also 20 fuel blocks; half the amount I got from my pod, and four small couriers. Four weapon modules were discarded, all different from the ones I received in my pod. The set I was given were two quad-barrel 20mm autocannons that didn’t come with ammunition, a , and an , the last of which I wasn’t even sure counted as a weapon but was considered one anyways.

This pod, on the other hand, had a pair of (also without ammunition), an 8x2x1 monster of a gun called a , and a , which consumed carbon fiber, microchips, and fuel to assemble its armament. Seeing that gave me an idea, and I unloaded it and attempted to equip the weapon onto my large courier. It worked, the courier dropping some finished cubes of components and attaching the drone launcher to itself. I juggled around a few items in the inventory system by focusing on the ones I wanted to be moved, then placing their outline on the empty spaces I wanted them transferred to. After I let go of the item, the robots that had to exchange items would come together to do so, some falling off my rear to do their business before returning to sit below me.

It was quite a slow process to start, but I got the hang of it pretty fast and was able to move an item a second by the time I got up to speed. The single large inventory screen I didn’t need to scroll also helped in this regard, though the icons were quite small. The designers of the interface were also prescient enough to add numbers after every robot, so I could actually tell which one they were. I decided to dump my autocannons from my medium robot, dragging their icon onto a large box with a down arrow labeled [Discard]. My rail guns were pretty much the same thing, but better, and I actually had six extra boxes of ammunition containing 500 slugs each. In their place went the mortars, in case the need arose for them later.

None of my robots could actually carry the apart from the large courier, who’s inventory had shrunk considerably, so I ended up mounting it backward on my rear module slots. I could’ve actually mounted it pointing sideways, a pretty awful decision in my opinion. I just imagined me galloping through a forest or urban area thwacking the 8 meter-long barrel on everything I passed.

It was <28:32:17> when I finished all my inventory management. I had spent around 10 minutes sitting by the pod rearranging items and deciding on my next moves. While I was loading myself up with some more components and dropping off a block of premade microchips to the large courier for its drone launcher, I heard sounds of combat far off in the distance. It was still bright outside, so I couldn’t really see any flashes of light, but there definitely was a drawn-out battle occurring. According to my map, it was in the direction of the tier zone. Given the quite obvious destroyed path of crops in that direction, I assumed the pilot who dropped here decided to move towards that zone.

There were two pods that had landed at the zone also, meaning there were currently a set of three striders fighting who knows what. I could hear the distinct crack and rumble of constant railgun fire, intermixed with the sound of multiple other weapons including the occasional boom. According to what I learned from the tutorial a few hours ago, a zone rating of three indicated the area had a local military presence, which appeared accurate due to the fact the fighting was still going on. More reinforcements would likely stream in as the local forces start mobilizing against our blitzkrieg, so it was important I met up with the others to form an effective breakthrough. Thus, I ignored the safer, tier zone in favor of the .

Setting my group back to follow and picking up all the small couriers, I began marching on again, following the path of the pilot ahead of me. As I crossed an asphalt road going through the fields, I turned my view in panoramic mode to look back towards the farm buildings, noticing interceptable wireless signals. I could faintly see a few lizardmen prone or looking out from behind corners of buildings, observing our departure. One stood in the open, arm in a sling, staring hatefully as we left. They were soon pulled back behind the buildings once someone noticed them standing there, but their gaze never left my direction. The messages I intercepted were just as concerning; they were reporting my full force composition to the authorities, to the best of their abilities anyways.

My mental finger itched slightly, as I listened to them hurriedly talk into their phones. There were now several more yellows on my minimap.

“Does your group still have the heavy weaponry that was sent to you? Do everything you can to slow those machines down, the military is currently bogged down in extensive urban combat in the direction they are heading. Another one of those massive walkers arriving could spell disaster. We can’t fight that thing, it already killed so many people! I saw a missile hit one square in the side and it just turned and melted the building it came from! Just do what you can, all we need is time. Please, just try.” They said over the phone.

A railgun slug punched through the top of the warehouses before continuing on to bury itself in the field somewhere. I lowered my foreleg as the lizards scattered back into cover. Just in case, I toggled the map, making sure I knew how to aim and fire a tactical missile. It was incredibly easy, the cluster of yellow dots being temporarily covered in a red circle before I disarmed the weapon and closed my map again. They wouldn’t get a second chance.