?


    "This isn''t working fast enough. Nico, how about some low-intensity Fusion mer action?" Max suggested as he saw the crowd of Demons in the hallway.


    "The Mobile Suits are all equipped, but there is no low-intensity setting." Nico reminded him.


    "Then a short burst. I don''t want to melt our ship."


    Nicoughed. "Half-second burst from all Android units in 3, 2, 1, NOW."


    Max joined the burst and then realized that the Morphos likely didn''t know how to ess the weapons.


    His allies were rapidly retreating back into the room as all the hallways filled with mes, and the Demons vanished with a puff of ash that quickly turned to wisps of energy.


    "What in the Seven Realms was that?" Envoy Queen yelled.


    "Sorry, we forgot to brief you on the backup weapons of the suit. There is a Fusion mer in the t space storage. We just had the Androids use them to purge the Demons from the hallways so that we could move again." Max yelled back so he could be heard over the lingering screams of dying Demons.


    "Well, warn a girl before you do that again. Plus, why does it smell like fried chicken in here? That is so distracting."


    Maxughed at her response. He always turned his suit to full recirction because his sense of smell wasn''t going to help him in any meaningful way during mostbat scenarios, but she must have had hers set to filter, which would allow nontoxic scents through.


    For a moment, everything was silent, and then a mental scream tore through the minds of everyone left aboard the ship, especially Max, bringing all but him to their knees.


    That was a scream of both pain and rageing from the hiddenyer of space, and Max realized that the reason that the Arisen fleet hadn''te here to fight was that they were there, attacking whatever being was masterminding this attack.


    Max could feel it as the being retreated, and the energy barrier around his ship began to fade, allowing them to banish thest of the demons and cleanse the Cutter of any lingering signs of infestation.


    "Envoy, how are yourrades doing? Should we send reinforcements?" Max called out to the team of Morphos.


    "They are stable. Fortunately, the ns you sent were in a format that ispatible with ourputer, and we were able to put them into production right away. We only managed to make a dozen with the materials that we had on board, but it is enough that we are clearing out the ship."


    Their replication systems must work differently than the human ones if they were limited by materials, but if they had managed to make enough, then he could just send extras to their teams to help them purge on the surface and keep the interior of their ships safe from future attacks.


    "We will help you out with that after the battle. How is the attack going on your end?" Max asked as he checked for updates from his own fleet.


    They had been steadily taking out the Cathedral Ships, mostly disabling them, but as soon as they were critically damaged, the ships would vanish, preventing a definitive kill.


    It was frustrating, but Max had sensed the malevolent intelligence behind the attacks, something that was far beyond the scale of a regr human. It seemed that they had finally encountered the first of the true minions of the so-called Great Evil or Great Enemy. A greater energy being that could summon waves of minions to attack a and even lock Max''s Cutter in an energy field that human technology couldn''t break.


    They were going to have to work on that. They couldn''t rely on the Arisen to save them every time, and there was definitely going to be a next time now that the enemy had gotten a taste of their capabilities.


    It might not be a mortal being, but Max could feel the pure rage today as it realized that it had been defeated. That kind of rage didn''t just dissipate. The creature was going to hold a grudge.


    [The ship is clear, Commander. What are your orders for the new Androids?] The ship''s Communications Android asked.


    [Have them all remain on station at their point of creation. I want armed forces scattered all through the ship in case of future attacks. They can all remain in the Mobile Suits on standby until they are called again.] Max ordered.


    The Androids didn''t really need physical hobbies. They spent most of their time with their subroutines split into a virtual environment of training simtions and games that kept their need for input fed while also expanding their knowledge base beyond the default creation points.


    Interestingly, that wasn''t his or Nico''s idea. It hade from the AI on the Colony Ship that they had created. The simtion had always existed, as Nico created it to train the Androids, but the AI had suggested that it could be a source of entertainment and learning so that the physical bodies could remain on standby without putting the units into stasis.


    ording to it, the process would decrease losses by over three percent per week of study time on an overall basis, and that broke the threshold for the margin of error in the data set it was using, so the procedure was deemed to be effective.


    If it were possible for the Androids to be happy, they would be right now. They had just seeded in defending the ship without any loss of mortal lives, as their prime directive had instructed them, and the ship was still intact and operational despite the extensive interior damage.


    Mostly that was weapons fire, and the Fusion mers, but a few of the acid baths had also been broken after Demons were inserted into them as a method of chemical warfare.


    The rooms were acid-resistant, but some of the acid had spilled out into the hallways, where the metallic flooring was not as well suited to the task.


    The ship was already starting the repair process, undoing the damage from the battle, and Max slowly wound his mind down from imminent threat to battle management.


    [Drone Bombers, I want supply drops for the civilian resistance. Give them these rifles that dissipate the Demons. The effect is disguised with a Laser st, so they likely won''t realize that the weapons are special, and neither will the enemy.


    Let''s start cleaning up this battlefield before the enemy leadership recovers.]


    [Understood, Commander. The weapons ns are being processed, and drop sites have been located.]