As soon as Terminus dropped out of warp, in orbit around the Grox homeworld, Max began an all-frequencies broadcast from the cockpit of Cleansing Light.
[This is the Terminus Trading Company, under contract to the Cygnus Empire. The compliance of your nation has been sanctioned. Please disable your shields and prepare for the peaceful reorganization of your political leadership.] Max informed them, hearing the laughter in Nico's thoughts from the other side of the bay where she was preparing to launch the Orbital Drone Fighters.
[The Grox answer to no Human Empire. Leave now, and we will forgive this transgression for a nominal penalty.] The response from the planet arrived almost immediately.
[You heard the man. All units launch.] Max ordered, then jumped out of the open bay door so that Cleansing Light could face the Grox Capital.
Barriers were going up all over the planet, as expected, but they wouldn't last long against the firepower of the Cutters, and if they were smart, they wouldn't fight back at all after Max dealt with the Capital.
There would be a lot of collateral damage from this plan, but it was the best way that he had come up with to end the fighting before it started, so Max began to charge the Disruptors on his Mecha for one concentrated burst.
The Grox must have detected the power surge with their sensors because they sent a volley of fire from their Capital defenses straight at him, flickering harmlessly against the shielding of Terminus.
Max moved forward out of the protection of the Colony Ship and let loose the first volley, faintly greenish light from the Disruptors forming a pillar through the atmosphere for the entire second that the weapon took to discharge. Then an immense explosion came from the ground, blinding every sensor that Max had.
Nico's evaluation came in even before Max's sensors had recovered. [The Variable Frequency Disruptor entirely bypassed their shielding, annihilating the city and causing the four fusion power plants below the Capital to go critical at once, with the blast partially contained by the city's defenses.
The chances of survival are less than one in a billion.
Chances of salvageable technology, less than one in ten million.]
While the Captial burned, the Cutters made landfall near the five largest work centers in the system, dropping their Battalions, which immediately split into Companies to secure their assigned zones.
Mecha surged out of the cities to meet them, shouting and chanting litanies that made no sense to the Regiment. They were all in a foreign language that the Kepler computer systems didn't automatically translate but seemed to be some religious litany by the assortment of banners and gilded leadership Mecha.
[Commander, the first translations are in. It appears they are calling us "God Killers." The Grox have set themselves up as deities to the enslaved human population.] Nico reported.
Seconds later, the Orbital Fighters were launched, a wave of drones meant to reduce the casualties taken by their Mecha in the first wave of an enemy counterattack.
[Just great. Now we have to deal with two worlds full of religious zealots. I don't intend to kill every soul in this system, so someone needs to come up with a plan in the next five minutes before the engagement starts.] Max ordered.
They had a staff aboard Terminus that was just for logistics, planning, and data analysis. Hopefully, they could come up with something quickly, or Max was going to have to do this the hard way.
[Plan H is to inundate them with propaganda touting us as the saviors who are here to overthrow the deceivers. We could modify it to call them false gods. Every Grox that we kill will reinforce our message that they aren't deities.] The planning staff suggested.
[That's not the worst plan I've heard today. Get on it. I want it on every television and every radio on both planets. Bombard them with the message that their overlords are usurpers, claiming something that they have no right to.] Max ordered.
[All Units target their leaders. Every signal you get that suggests a Grox lifeform, take it out with extreme prejudice. The loss of leadership will enrage them but also demoralize them and break the chain of command.]
Aboard Terminus, the Innu and Illithid were watching the battle play out with a mixture of horror and rapt attention. Like a live train wreck, they were unable to look away. War might be anathema to their cultures at this point, but the thought that people had been manipulated into accepting their slave masters as deities they needed to worship was equally terrifying, especially once Nico started playing the footage from the planet for them, as the Grox who were stationed outside the main city rallied their forces to move out against the invaders.
They clearly weren't going to come out to fight themselves, so Nico started marking them with the sensors from the Drones, giving the Mecha more targeting solutions that would directly hit the Grox leadership.
Max's [Unified Force] System Talent and the computing power of Cleansing Light gave him plenty of options, fed to him from the entire Regiment as he hovered in orbit around the main planet, so Max chose the most pertinent first. He ordered the Cutters to take out the shields on the various cities and manufacturing areas. Then he obliterated the Grox Temples, where a large number of them were hiding and issuing orders to the Human militaries under their command.
That was all that he could do from orbit, so Max searched the combat logs for the Company facing the direst situation and sent Cleansing Light hurtling through the atmosphere toward their position for some close fire support.
The Second Company of the Fourth Battalion had particularly bad luck with this landing. They had been assigned to what looked like a special forces training area and were outnumbered by Heavy Mecha at least three to one, with more assembling in the city.
The Grox didn't seem to have any Super Heavy Mecha so that the Thunder Guns would help even out the numbers, but for the moment, the Second Company was pinned down and beginning to take casualties.
Six Disruptor blasts turned two wings of Heavy Mecha into ashes as Max landed between the Grox military and his own troops. His arrival brought cheers to his forces and panic to the enemy. A Titan Class Mecha did not belong in a Reaver attack force, and they had no plans on how to counter such a devastating weapon.
