Chapter 50 - Begin the Assault (2/2)

"Is your last name Zuberg?" Gray asked

"Huh? It's Focaccina! I'm also of Italian descent like Giacobbe, not German!" Alice complained.

"It was a joke..." Gray said laughing slightly "Jokes aside, fire at will!"

Gray watched Alice aim at the knee joint of a mech being reloaded in one of the gantries, using a steady hand she squeezed the trigger of her sniper rifle and a massive round shot out of the rifle towards her intended target. The round missed but instead nicked the gantry support and a crane carrying ammo suddenly toppled over causing the technicians to scurry around and hide, then look around for where that shot came from.

Stacia fired next and she managed to hit the elbow joint of a mech in a gantry, the forearm of the mech went limp but didn't fall off, still, a limp arm is a useless arm. "I hit it!" Stacia said excitedly.

"Good shot, keep your cool though, plenty of more limbs to damage." Yurika told Stacia. "Stacia, 20 meters left, go for that leg next."

Stacia's aim shifted barely 1 degree to the left to line up her next shot, at the point Caleb had just fired his first shot and hit the other elbow of the mech Stacia had already hit and caused the other forearm to go limp.

"Good shot Caleb, consider that mech disarmed, literally." Geoff said to Caleb.

"You're welcome Geoff." Caleb replied.

"For what?" asked Geoff.

"You've been wanting to use that joke for awhile, right?" Caleb said with a smile on his face.

"Yes... and thank you! 20 meters right, go for a leg this time"

Xyra was aiming at the same mech that Alice was, but her aim was awful. She was aiming for a knee joint but instead ended up hitting the mech in what would've been the groin if it were a person. Paul winced in pain when he saw where she hit and Yurika said "Perfect shot! Yeah!"

"...n-no... aiming... right knee..." Xyra whispered.

Yurika said to Xyra "Take a deep breath and relax, we're in a simulator so nobody will get hurt if you destroy their mech."

"...thank you..." Xyra whispered again.

After four muzzle flashes the defenders finally were able to see where the shots were coming from and some of the defenders started to work their way around to the North East of the base. A missile turret that was in range aimed in their direction too, but it never fired as the AI operator seemed to be afraid of damaging the solar panels or was not allowed to cause damage to potentially critical structures.

"Good, as I hoped the only thing we have to worry about is enemy snipers." Gray said.

Only 5 enemy mechs stayed on the south wall, 20 on the west wall where the main entrance was, 15 were taking up sniper positions along the north and east walls to try and hit Gray and the others. The remaining 10 were either stuck in a repair gantry or trying to clear the debris from the crane falling earlier.

"Tiara, can you monitor the enemy snipers and let me know which one has the best shot?" Gray asked.

"Yes Gray, I will highlight each enemy mech in different shades of red based upon threat assessment." Tiara replied.

"Good, now Stacia and Caleb, pick off exposed enemies that try to chance positions. Alice and Xyra, aim for the defenders at the south gate." Gray commanded.

"Why the south gate? Shouldn't we help the main force at the main gate?" Alice asked

"Not yet, we're going to try and really sell the south gate attack."

The enemy snipers had to aim up, and being unable to kneel and aim up easily gave Gray and the rest of Team 3 a huge advantage. The 4 snipers continued to aim for the joints of the defenders and even though they only managed to hit a few, each enemy that lost an arm or leg would be come significantly less effective in combat even if they weren't completely out of it.

"Team 2, heavy push, cross the bridge, sell it like a used car salesman wearing a cheap suit!" Gray popped into Team 2's chat room and attempted to order them. Luckily after laughing for a second they all burst out of the southern forest and headed across the bridge. The enemy missile turrets turned towards them and fired off several rounds at Team 2 as they tried to cross the bridge. Fortunately Giacobbe wasn't a complete idiot and recognized what was happening so while more defenders move to the southern gate thinking it was under a full assault, 4 members of Team 1 ran to the edge of the forest near the west gate carrying what looked like a giant bazooka with 4 sets of handles, even for a mech this was a little overkill Gray thought.

"Knock knock bitches!" Giacobbe said with a cheesy grin, one could tell he was just waiting to say that.

A low rumble sounded followed by a high pitched squeel then a noise similar to a grenade launcher resounded as a large ball of lightning discharged from the giant bazooka the 4 mechs were holding.

"Plasma! Damn, no wonder Giacobbe was confident, but one problem with that thing though..."

Gray noticed that the 2 mechs at the back of the launcher had gone dark and were not moving.

"Damn thing drains not just your weapon energy, but your mech fuel since plasma isn't purely electrical."

The ball of plasma collided with the main gate almost noiselessly, the ball collapsed and spread out over the door evaporating it within seconds.

"Charge!" Giacobbe yelled as the main assault had truly begun!