We traversed through passages littered with Twisted corpses killed off by the combat bots and made our way to the underground section of the structure.
“This thing’s rather comfy to ride huh.”
“Its handling has some quirks you need to get used to at first though.”
We were currently riding newly developed hover vehicles in order to navigate the rough terrain. Although its speed is not that high, the vehicle can easily run on bumps, steep slopes, and cliffs with an elevation of several meters, and can accommodate six passengers including the driver. It seems they made it by applying the tech they used to make the Gravity Sphere.
“There aren’t any signs of enemies anywhere. It looks like they were really thorough with the clean-up.”
“Even if there were lucky survivors, our escort of high-mobility combat bot will make short work of them.”
A military combat bot with a sharp silhouette accompanied the hover vehicle that’s running at a maximum speed of merely 30 km/h. It’s a bipedal combat bot with reverse-jointed legs that nimbly navigated the terrain as it moved together with the underground structure investigation unit that included me and Lt. Col. Serena. I wasn’t clear about its exact firepower, but judging from how fast and agile it was, I’m sure it would prove quite troublesome if you engage it in combat. And it’s not even running at full speed.
I wonder what would happen if I were to fight it? Well, it doesn’t look that sturdy, so I guess aiming for its legs to crush its mobility and running away would be a solid plan. Eh? Why would I even run after crushing its legs? Of course, I would. It’s an incredibly stupid move to engage in a head-on firefight with a combat bot sporting extreme shooting accuracy y’know. Even in SOL, the accuracy of combat bots was borderline cheating. They had almost a hundred percent accuracy and if you didn’t have armor that could withstand laser fire or an energy shield, you’re basically screwed. You’d just end up taking each other down at the very least. And in the first place, a bot’s reaction speed was leagues better than a human. Civilian-use bots have been tuned to have lowered performance though.
“So, what’s the situation now?”
“They put up an energy shield and are completely hunkering down. Well, we just have to get rid of it once we arrive.”
The energy shield that was developed to protect starships from space debris during FTL navigation was quite an effective defensive tool, but it was by no means impregnable. It’s relatively vulnerable to attacks by high-powered lasers, high-calorie plasma weapons, missiles, and bombs that generate intense explosions and shockwaves, and the interference effect between similar energy shields.
The anti-ship reactive torpedoes equipped on Krishna also basically neutralizes a ship’s energy shield by making use of the interference effect via a device on its warhead. That’s what’s written in the item description in SOL anyway. I haven’t checked if it uses the same method in this dimension though.
“By the way, how are we gonna get rid of the shield?”
I was thinking they were probably gonna bust out equipment that could neutralize the shield. However, Lt. Col. Serena didn’t answer my question and just kept mum. I see. So it’s some sort of military secret huh? That’s what I thought anyway.
And what transpired in the end was–
“We only have this method at our disposal.”
I couldn’t find words to describe the scene unfolding before my eyes at first.
“What a simple brute-force method!”
A large number of military combat bots were unloading continuous streams of lasers at the energy shield covering the enemy facility, and a Titan-class combat bot with a height of 5 meters was ramming itself at the shield with all its weight. Uh, I guess it wasn’t just ramming itself at the shield…… It activated its own shield and was ramming that onto the shield covering the facility and making it crackle, I think? Though it did look like it was just stupidly ramming itself at the shield though.
“It looks like their shield was stronger than we expected, but it probably won’t last long under this punishment.”
“After the shield goes down, it would be our turn to charge, right?”
“That would be a bit later. We’ll have the combat bots charge in first.”
As we had our exchange, the shield covering the facility finally began to fluctuate and completely went down soon afterward. And the moment the shield disappeared, the lasers being fired by the combat bots burned open a section of the facility’s walls. By the way, the energy shields in this dimension don’t shatter like glass when they go down like in some sci-fi shows. Just thought I’d mention it.
After they confirmed that the energy shield had gone down, the small and medium-type combat bots rushed inside the facility in an orderly manner. The Titan-class combat bot couldn’t fit in due to its sheer size so it seems it would remain on standby outside.
“First, let’s search for the shield generator and main power generator. It would be bad if they trapped us inside using the energy shield and made the power generator go critical later after all.”
“That’s an excellent judgment. I’m not an expert though, so don’t take my word for it.”
I’m not a tactical expert, so I can’t say for sure, but I think that was a solid decision. Securing a way of retreat was fundamental in any operation, and if we took control of the enemy’s power generator, it would be possible to shut down the facility’s defense systems as well.
“You’re just saying whatever you want…… Anyway, we’ll be charging in soon, so get yourself ready.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
But even though we’ve used lots of automated tech during this operation, we’re still gonna decide everything with swords in the end huh. In the worst case, we need to recover the target’s corpse, so couldn’t we just overwhelm him with a large number of combat bots? I guess they’re just being particular about honor between nobles huh.
We waited for at least 30 minutes.
“We found our target in the innermost section of the facility. Let’s go.”
“Roger.”
It seems the combat bots finally managed to corner Geritz and his other cohorts, and the imperial marines began to move at Lt. Col. Serena’s orders. They were quite free earlier as well because the combat bots took care of most of the action, so they were apparently raring to go.
Lt. Col. Serena ran ahead and the imperial marines followed after her. I also followed Lt. Col. Serena along with the marines, but I couldn’t get rid of the bad feeling I’ve been having since earlier.
“Is there really a way to turn things around under this situation……?”
I racked my brains in thought as we continued to head deeper into the facility. Even though I had a bad feeling about it, I still had to follow orders. This was a proper military operation after all. I’m basically just a hired gun, err, sword anyway.
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