As the micro portals began to stabilize and merge into slightly larger ones, each a few centimetres apart and lasting for more than a fraction of a second, the researchers began to work on a plan.
While the Mecha would take a few minutes to get in position after a larger portal stabilized, they could launch a full out attack and bombard the enemy to keep them from organizing before the Mecha team was ready.
It would be a glorious first strike, and the first time that any of them had actually used a weapon on a living target.
Of course, that suggestion led them to a discussion on whether the energy beings could truly be considered alive, and not just a sentient existence, like the Androids. But even with the ongoing discussions, they kept to the plan and prepared their weapons for the Commanders' orders.
The process was painfully slow when they watched it from this close up, and even after fifteen minutes, nothing was coming through the handful of small portals that were beginning to stabilize, lasting for entire minutes at a time now.
[Soon, I can feel it.] Nico muttered over the radio as she impatiently waited for the right moment.
Max could feel the scheming, and the apprehension from the Greater Energy Being on the other side. It was becoming convinced that it had been set up, as there was only one ship here to intercept it.
No ships at all in the region could be written off as an unprepared defence, a whole fleet meant that they were ready for a fight. But one single ship meant that the defenders likely had some sort of weapon that they didn't want their own people exposed to, and that didn't bode well for the incoming armies.
So, it held the troops back while the portal formed and waited for Max to make the first move.
Another hour passed, and Max got the message that the Android Fleet was on its way, after finishing their battle in a nearby system. They would be another two hours, but they were relatively close. All that was left was to wait and see who won this staring contest.
The portal stabilized when the Android Fleet was an hour out, creating a massive shimmering energy barrier over a hundred kilometres across.
Nico laughed as she saw how large the portal had become.
"Now we're talking, This is the sort of entry that a proper villain is supposed to make." She declared as she looked through the portal at the other side.
All that they could see were puffy white clouds, so the portal must have opened in an atmosphere, but well above ground level. That was a bit unusual, but the other layers didn't always work the same as their own, and it might be something like that floating piece of landmass that they had landed on the first time they had entered another layer.
[Ready when you are.] The research team reminded Max as he did his best to scan the other side.
[There's something off about that portal. It's massive, but I don't see a single supporting lesser energy being. The sensors aren't picking up anything due to the interference, which I suspect is the intent of the Greater Energy Being. I think that it might have evacuated its forces.] Max replied.
The Great Enemy had always been aggressive, so this empty portal was unnatural and out of character for them. As much as Max was setting a trap to ambush the Energy Being when it tried to move, the Energy Being was setting a trap for him.
"Hey Nico, can we shut that portal? I want to see what it does when we try. If it doesn't respond, then we know that we've called its bluff, and it is going to try again elsewhere." Max requested.
"I'm on it." She agreed, then started to reconfigure the Cutter's weapons array.
One shot from a specially modified Antimatter Torpedo should do the trick, or so she hoped. If it wasn't enough, she would fire a whole array of them at the edge of the portal to destabilize it and cause the enemy to have to start all over if they wanted to fight here today.
Nico prepared the weapon for launching, and the research team prepared the sensors to make sure that they didn't miss any of the data from the resulting explosion. In theory, the weapon would work perfectly, but the difference between theory and reality could be a massive gap.
"Alright, we're set. We're ready when you are." The lead researcher informed them, while Nico began to charge the weapons array.
The Portal began to shift and change as the weapon charged, and Max was about to order the team to hold off until it was stabilized again when both the weapon and the portal flared with energy and the world around them turned bright white as the sensors were overloaded, and it became impossible to tell what was going around them.
The whole staff went on standby, and carefully watched the shield outputs to make sure that nothing was attacking them when the sensors were down. There weren't any signs of incoming damage, and the internal sensors were working fine, with no indication that they had been breached for boarded by lesser Energy Beings.
It was a strange situation, and Max couldn't help but wonder if it was accidental, and not a deliberate attack by the Energy Being on the other side of the portal.
As the sensors began to clear, Max took in their surroundings in confusion. They were no longer in space, at least not as far as he could tell. They appeared to be on the surface of a planet, and there were golden armoured enemies in the distance, but no sign of the Greater Energy Being or any other energy beings for that matter.
If Max had to guess, they might have been pulled through the layers and onto a planet's surface. That could be a serious problem, depending on what sort of twisted natural laws this layer had, and what sort of creatures lived in it.
"Find out where we are and get us a situation report," Max ordered.
"On it, Boss."
