As the Golden Legion started to move out, the lesser energy beings that were from their patron all began to gather and head toward the main group. They lacked radios or any other form of communication equipment, so the message was slow in passing between them, but Max saw an opportunity in that.
If he moved the Mecha force along that line where the message was passing and shouted it occasionally through the loudspeakers, he could get them all moving in the right direction and leave only the actual enemies in their way.
It would cut the number of targets that they had to fight nearly in half, and it would allow the Golden Legion's minimal scouting force to deal with larger threats, while the main force was engaged in the city.
There were other cities in the distance, according to the sensors, and there was a chance that they were pushing toward one of them, or a hidden military base to gather more troops, but the blast seemed to have destroyed their electronics.
They weren't using any vehicles, only armoured infantry and some of their crude Mecha, which Max recalled should operate entirely on hydraulics, with no central computer at all.
If the rest of their army was like that, it should be mobile soon, but it was likely stuck in the city, and now surrounded by enemies who had appeared at random all over the region.
[Timer.] Nico called out, startling Max.
Another portal appeared in the far distance, and this time, Max saw the shimmering of stars as it stabilized for a moment and a Destroyer sized Cathedral Ship began to pass through, before a massive explosion detonated the vessel, causing a ripple effect to take out the portal and throw both flaming fragments of the ship and survivors everywhere.
[Feth, I know what's happening. The Android Army has arrived, and they're on our side of the portal. They must have learned from our experience, and they're staying out of range of the blasts, but they're destroying the portals as they open.
The Cathedral Ships are passing through this layer on their way between where they're hiding and our layer of space, which is why they're having such a hard time stabilizing the portals. They're not a direct route, either because it's not possible, or because they're trying to disguise their intentions and origin.] She explained.
[Great, that's just what we needed. Player 4 is here now. New orders, target the survivors of the Cathedral Ships and keep telling the Golden Legion's energy being allies where they should go to assemble with the rest of their team. If they're not working together, the Golden Legion might be allies for the moment, and we will have one safe flank.]
[And after that?] Nico asked hopefully.
[Then we do what we came here to do. Destroy the Cathedral Ship fleet. We can't leave them running around the place.] Max teased.
[I was hoping that you were going to say something like that. I've already got a plan ready, and it's ingenious. What I'm thinking is that we keep building Mecha, with Androids piloting them, and send out teams to hunt the survivors of the Cathedral Ships. One Super Heavy with ten Corvettes.
We can fan out in an arc, and cover as much of the region as possible, and help the Golden Legion reform their army in the area while we wait to see if the Great Enemy is going to get a clue and stop with the portals, or if the Androids will keep blasting them into oblivion.
It won't be long before they've used so much antimatter that the surrounding region will become unstable, and it wouldn't be possible to open a portal at all, even without their interference.
The only problem with that is once the layer is destabilized, we can't return directly there, as we won't be able to open a portal home either, unless we find a way off this giant planet.]
Nico had a point. If things kept going at this rate, it wouldn't be long before nobody could move between their home layer and other layers in this region, themselves included. That would mean finding a way off this strange planet, or moving in reverse, to the layer where the Cathedral Ships were coming from so that they could move to a new spot and transfer from there.
That plan had an ominous vibe to him, and Max made sure not to voice it to Nico, who would likely start working on the plan the very instant she heard that there was the slightest chance she would get to solo the entire Cathedral Ship fleet.
He knew her entirely too well, and while the plan did sound like it would be of great benefit to every species in the known universe, it also sounded more than a little bit suicidal.
If they had a whole fleet with them, he might consider taking the fight directly to the enemy, but alone, with one Cutter, it just didn't have the same heroic vibe to it.
[Alright, get on it. Do what you need to do to keep the ship protected as well, we don't want to lose our way home, or put our team in danger.]
[You have a point. Getting stuck in some random disjointed layer of space on a planet that doesn't seem to have proper gravity would definitely put a damper on my plans to dominate the Universe.] Nico agreed.
That offhand remark resonated in Max's mind. Not about Nico wanting to rule the universe, that wasn't new information. But the gravity in this place. Every layer had something strange about it, and from what the sensors had detected, Max suspected that this layer had only one constant gravity.
That was why the planet could be so huge and still habitable. Or possibly flat, and still have gravity. How the nearby star overhead remained intact was a mystery if that was the case, but it was possible that the Greater Energy Beings or the God that had chosen this place had the ability to influence gravity, much like the now deceased God of Time had manipulated that fundamental law to their own advantage.
