Chapter 31: The Battle

Tani gave the order and the ten AAC's climbed to the air and glided into formation. Five of the AAC's cruised just above treetop level and five more cruised above them. Their formation allowed the forces on the ground to give covering fire below the lower AAC's. The AAC formation would let them give covering fire to each other, The Mountains on one side and the ocean and Vigger ships on the other would force the attackers to come in a frontal attack and not around the flanks.

The robot forces flew straight up the gauntlet this formed and into a hail of shells. The limit of shells the guns on the AAC's could fire due to overheating had been solved by installing rotating barrels. As these guns began to fire on the enemy mountains of expended cartridges rolled from the decks and rained down on the jungle below. The first two waves of enemy attackers simply disappeared but for each robot air car that was destroyed two more took its place. The Viggers ships fired from off shore destroying still more ships. The protective coating that covered the ACs made them impervious to the beams that soon covered them from the robot guns.

Two ten seat air ships kept in continuous motion supplying the AAC's with ammunition. Robot guns could not damage the AAC's but impervious they were not to ramming. The fire support from the Viggers was reduced to zero as they were either sunk or totally disabled.

An AAC's became overwhelmed, there were simply too many of the attackers coming from above, below, and from the side all at once. The gunners on board could not destroy them fast enough and three robot ACs rammed one of the AAC's at one time. The explosion scattered the wreckage and destroyed four more robot ACs. As the wreckage tumbled to the ground, the defending AAC's shifted to fill the hole the loss had created. One by one, the defending AAC's succumbed to the ramming technique and each time Tani felt like a dagger drove into her heart. The last remaining AAC tumbled from the sky fire still pouring from its guns as it crashed to the jungle below. The crews of all those AAC's had been Tani's friends, her lover Uji had been one of the pilots. Tani stabbed the controller in her hand almost savagely, activating the guns in the mountains.

The rain of shells that resulted swept the sky clear of enemy craft. Even Xtos and the awesome numbers at his command could not ignore this type of attrition and especially with none of the humans being sacrificed to his attacks. They withdrew until they were out of range and then Xtos ordered a ground attack. one after another, groups of air cars dropped to the ground and disgorged their passengers. They formed up into a wall of robot bodies and surged forward at a rapid pace for a ground attack.

The defenders braced themselves for the coming clash. The minefield they charged through took many of the attackers out of action but they pressed on and when they came close enough the defenders opened fire. A wall of beams and shells tore into the charging robots leaving huge gaps in their ranks but still they came. Their metallic bodies littered the ground and formed rolling hills but the attackers scrambled over their fallen comrades and came on. The defenders wore body armor that protected them from the robot beams but their heads and limbs were exposed and here and there, the defenders decapitated or losing limbs fell. The remaining defenders shifted their fire to cover the loss but each loss resulted in weakened firepower causing even more defenders to fall wounded or dead.

Tani spun and was thrown to the ground her left arm was severed by a robot beam. She quickly surged back to her feet, grabbed her rifle with her remaining hand, and kept firing. Near the end, the human defenders became small pockets of resistance that were swarmed over by the attackers. Eventually the fighting became savage hand-to-hand fighting. One by one, the humans were overwhelmed and either killed or wounded so badly they could not resist any longer.

Five robots attacked Tani at once. Her rifle destroyed, she drew her knife and with a savage yell became a veritable whirlwind of motion, stabbing, slicing, and hacking each of her attackers to pieces. The robots fell but ten more were there to take their place. Tani disappeared under an avalanche of robot bodies.