I had all communications in the area jammed.

It was not impossible to defeat that jamming, but it also wasn't easy. There were about two options; laser comms, or large and powerful transmitters. The latter were typically their own installations.

The former was a mix of easier and harder. With a direct line of sight to the target, it was quite easy. It became more difficult as distance went up, and as the platform it was mounted on became more mobile.

For satellite communications, trying to mount laser comms on something like an AH12 was basically wasted mass. They were way the fuck too maneuverable, and keeping that connection going would require them to commit the cardinal sin of modern combat; being predictable in their movement.

Nothing would get you killed faster.

So, I wasn't expecting them to be able to communicate. It was for that reason alone that I was affording the Firekeepers the chance to take out the group on their own. Other measures might have been necessary instead, if they could communicate.

Still, that wasn't something to waste time on anymore.

Alpha squad picked their arena at the base of the Grid, in a slightly open area that was still near enough to some of the structures that Zatsuba had built to use as cover.

"Engage freely." I told Alpha Squad. "Remember, AH12s are heavily armoured over their entire frame. Your best bet will be to overload their ACS and then inflict as much damage on critical areas as possible. Keep an eye on your energy reserves, and do not stay still."

The AH12s closed in quickly, eating up the distance with a deceptive speed for something of their size. I could feel the scanning pulses against the armour of my Firekeepers' mechs, a very unsubtle electromagnetic interference making it quite obvious to me.

They came down quickly, only to fire retro-thrusters at the last moment, burning off speed as they settled into a final, long curve of movement. "Attention unidentified trespassers." I felt the flashes of anger pass through me as the Firekeepers registered the words, for the sheer gall of the PCA to declare people trespassers. "Stand down and submit to questioning-"

Alpha Squad didn't let them finish. They acted as one, scattering in five directions, weapons raised ready. Bolts of red and blue cut off any further words, missiles following a moment later.

I had to give them credit, though; heavily armoured meant heavily armoured, with the lasers and missiles all but splattering off of them. The Coral weapons were much more effective; burning nice and large chunks out of their hulls, though sheer size still worked in their favour here.

"Two minutes." I reminded them.

"Code 17!" The pilot called, as both helicopters promptly burned in different directions, disgorging a hail of chaff and ECM as they did.

One went high and to the left, while the other stayed roughly level and went to the right. Both of them quickly spun around, doing their best to dodge the incoming fire, but while their size afforded them many advantages, it didn't help them there.

Helicopter 1 took a moment to aim before its missile launchers started firing; laying down a carpet bombing towards Alpha Support and one of the Alpha Rangers. Both of them quickly took to the sky, getting away from the dangerous blast waves and shrapnel, though they quickly ended up boosting in different directions as the AH12 followed up with gatling fire and a wave of smaller seeking missiles. Faced with the choice of either target, it continued to follow the apparently slower one, turning to trail after Alpha Support. This left them open to nearly free attack from the Ranger, who eagerly took the opportunity to start launching laser bolts into the sensor pods and cockpit of the giant machine.

The other helicopter, meanwhile, had to contend with three ACs. This was generally considered a 'bad time', and rightfully so.

Alpha Melee and Alpha Scout both decided to get right up in helicopter's space, staying as close to the helicopter as they reasonably could without colliding with its blades or getting in front of the weapons. This left the biggest weakness of the AH12 on display; most of its firepower was faced forwards and down. Its only options for dealing with something close to it or behind it were missiles, or simply not letting it stay there.

Something it was quickly forced to do, boosting forwards and upwards before spinning around. A volley of bombardment missiles were launched immediately, just off-course enough to tell me that the pilot hadn't waited for it to obtain a lock. It didn't really matter that much anyway; all three mechs took to the air and simply kept up their fire as best as they could.

Alpha Melee was feeling a little left out, though. I could tell that much.

"Alpha Melee, switch to join with the other two. Alpha Scout, Alpha Ranger 1, keep up the pressure on your target. Alpha Support, Alpha Ranger 2, get ready for a heavy strike. Your target seems to be the more skilled."

Alpha Melee switched, boosting to join the other two members of his team. Alpha Support and Alpha Ranger 2 let him join, seamless as their actions changed.

The first helicopter didn't do much to change targets, still viewing Alpha Support as the best threat it could be dealing with. That was probably a fair assessment, to be completely honest.

"Alpha Melee, get ready to close. Alpha Support, Alpha Ranger 2, go for a simultaneous missile strike. Scratch damage is fine for now."

All three followed my directions, with Alpha Support switching to not dodging completely, but instead only making sure that the gatling rounds were just angled poorly. They were still absolutely huge chunks of metal in absolute terms, so those rounds definitely left their mark, but I could deal with that later.

Alpha Support and Alpha Ranger 2 both launched their missiles, sending an entire salvo at their helicopter. It was too close for the larger machine to dodge, not with so little warning. They crashed all against the front and the bottom of the helicopter, continuous overlapping explosives painting it in brightly lit smoke.

I could tell the moment the ACS overloaded from too many strikes; all of the thrusters ignited as it tried to stabilise itself, slowing to a crawl and holding still in doing so- and of course, leaving itself wide open in the process.

Alpha Melee didn't need me to point out the vulnerability. His thrusters flared as he launched into an immediate assault boost, charging forwards straight to it. He broke out of it just in front of the cockpit, letting momentum carry him the rest of the distance as his left arm raised, the Coral Oscillator already beginning to glow.

He collided with the AH12, slamming into it hard enough that his arm broke through the armoured cockpit. The pitched screaming of the Coral Oscillator rang only a moment later, the angry red beam delivered directly into the machine's internals with exactly the expected results.

It fucking evaporated. The beam of Surging Coral punched into the metal and sublimated everything in its path, punching through it in its entirety, immediately cooking every bit of ammo and fuel loaded into the machine, alongside many things that were not traditionally explosive, turning the entirety of what had once been a very large and powerful warmachine into a little more than a burning wreck.

"Excellent job." I spoke. "Now, onto the other."

With one of their targets... violently disassembled, that just left the other helicopter. We still had a good minute and a bit to deal with the thing, and with all five members of Alpha Squad there to do so, I was confident they could handle it.

The other helicopter spun around, getting some height. It fired a load of rockets, gatling guns going at full auto even as the missiles kept streaming outwards. Alpha Scout and Alpha Ranger 1 both had agility to dodge them, constantly flicking back and forwards to keep from being predictable, ducking into cover whenever their energy reserves went too low.

The rest of the squad began to close in, and the remaining helicopter tilted backwards, its thrusters ignited again as it charged further into the air, leaving the weapons range of Alpha Squad.

That also took it out of effective weapons range, though. From that distance, hitting something as mobile as an AC was a pipe dream, so I wasn't sure what it was trying to achieve there.

It levelled out after a few seconds, spinning around to face... away?

A second later, it boosted off, accelerating away from the Grid, and the battlezone as a whole.

...

"It's leaving?" Alpha Scout asked.

"It's prioritising the information already gathered." I realised. Damn. That was... really annoying, actually.

Okay. Fine.

I couldn't actually stop it, now. Not when it was heading away that quickly. Unusual for the PCA but if the Enforcement System rated information that high on its priorities, then it was unfortunately reasonable.

That was troublesome. I had a decent array of my actual equipment here.

"Mission over. Complication aside, you accomplished everything we came here to do." I sent them a navigation route, which would get them out of sight in short order, and also uploaded new orders to the other squads. "Get to the evacuation point. We need to start re-evaluating some plans."

Alpha Squad turned, beginning to make their way out of this place.

"Well, it's not ideal, but it's not all bad at least." Ezra murmured. "They only know of five Firekeepers. They don't know our actual numbers."

"True." I admitted.

Technically speaking, we'd accomplished all of our goals, here. Hell, we had even baited a hell of a lot of attention to ourselves, just like we'd wanted to do. The problem was that it had occurred in a manner that we didn't want to do.

There was no questioning that attacking Zatsuba like this had opened up the question of why. No doubt the PCA would figure out that we had some connection to the RLF. It was pretty obvious- and we didn't exactly intend to hide that in the first place. We just wanted to obscure the extent of it.

Mmm. No doubt the PCA would try to poke the RLF a bit after this in order to draw us out. I was going to have to leave that to Dolmayan and Flatwell, though. Keep the ruse going while we could.

With a few more overt attacks on people causing big problems, I could probably get them believing that we would target... well, big problem causers. That was going to take time and effort, obviously. Stability chasers? People with external goals?

How could I muddy the waters, here?

Well, first things first was to dramatically extend my arsenal. My Firekeepers were in need of expanded options yesterday. Letting the PCA pin down our capabilities would see them trying to exploit it. New weapons? Plenty of those on the list. Radical design changes? Well, RRI had done a whole lot of shit over the years, I'm sure I could adapt a few things.

Frame! All the Firekeepers currently used the exact same frame. Prototype that it was, I had pulled significant amounts of data from it already. Get the current set up to a fully developed line, and then start diverging. I had plenty of options, here. Three leg types that I hadn't used, and two weight classes that hadn't been explored at all.

And that was just AC6. I mean, I was basically pulling a Pulverizer with how my tech development was going, here. Maybe I should be taking a few more cues from the other games in the series... AC5 had such a fun concept that hadn't made it in... Efficient ones? Eh. That was debatable.

And then there were NEXTs. No Kojima Particles here, but we did have Coral... and there was quite a limited number of options in the Core Expansion slots, wasn't there?

Things to think about later, once everyone is back home safe.

Hopefully things won't get busy too quickly.