Out of Space

"ONE ROUND AWAY!" Hitsu vaguely heard some one scream out the warning and the whoosh of a rocket torn through the air, followed instantly with a deep heavy boom of an explosion. He ignored the effects of the RPG and instead focused on the rows and rows of red coated infantry wearing that ridiculous looking helmet.

The LMG in his arms rocked hard against his padded shoulders, as if patting him with solid assurance of its superior firepower. Streaks of tracer fire could be spotted here and there, too fast for the eye to follow, only when the rounds impacted against magical barriers did one could see its effects. Fiery firework like sparks burst from bullet impacts against the magical barriers. The barriers shimmered with a rainbow of colors before popping like soap bubbles when kinetic energy overwhelmed the ability of the magical barrier to sustain its form. Following that display of fireworks, it was time for the bodies behind the shattered barriers to start the dance of death.

Bodies jerked and twisted around under the influence of the 8.5 mm ball rounds, doing the macabre dance of death. Yet, the Protectorate Paladins continued to bravely push forward in face of such firepower that one has still yet to even see the enemy! Their singing of hymns could be heard in between gunfire and explosions as they marched into charging distance.

Hitsu and the rest couldn't care less if they marched to their deaths as long as they die obediently to their guns. He mumbled a curse when bluish white screen shimmered when the enemy airships lobbed another volley of steam fire at them, testing the strength of their defensive shields. Hitsu grinned as the enemy would had never thought that they would encounter such a powerful magical shield out here.

Both the ASAGs had hunkered down in the middle of their defensive position where the ruined church was located as they overlapped the magical shields projected overhead, only possible by using the same magical frequency. The crab like utility support golems were both busy feeding the hungry hopper of the Defender Mk I Portable Magical Shield projector with mana stones to supply it with magical power. The shield strength of the PMS was rated to be comparable to majority of the Old World's magical barrier carried by cruiser classed airships.

The only setback to the compact design was that it was three times more magic hungry while compared the magical formations and runes equipped on airships as its magical formations and runes were miniaturized. Hence, for the PMS to output a similar magical barrier strength, it would require a lot more magical energy to power it. And for such a feat, only the UN was rich enough in mana stones to do so.

With a pair of cruiser strength magical shield and further more overlapped to increase their strength, it would take both the Protectorate airships at least twenty minutes of bombardment to overwhelm the shield at least. Despite that, Hitsu did not feel very secured as from his corner of his eye, he spotted the hulking shape of a War Jack bursting out from the cloud of black smoke.

"Scan its shield's frequency again!" This time, Hitsu recognized the shouting voice of Altied. He took a quick glance to see Wolf fumbling with a boxy device in his hands and aiming the laser at the fast approaching War Jack.

"G- Got it!" Wolf yelled out after a moment. He grabbed a oval shaped device with a ring at the tip from his pouch. Marked on the body of the small fist sized egg was rows after rows of tiny etched rune words. He twisted each row and aligned the rune words up before twisting the ring out from tip of the egg.

Instantly, a soft hum could be heard and a small magical barrier appeared around egg. He quickly screwed the armed Anti Magical Prober into the head of the rocket and Altied got into a firing position by hoisting the RPG - 1 over his shoulder. Wolf slotted the rocket into the launch tube and set the igniter before slamming hard on Altied's shoulder and dodging to the side. "LOADED!"

"CLEAR BACK!" Altied quickly yelled as he rested the simple sights right at the center of mass of the War Jack barely fifty meters away. "ONE ROUND AWAY!"

The 70 mm rocket whooshed out, streaking across the air and touched the magical barrier of the Protectorate War Jack. Instead of exploding upon impact, the magical barrier armed rocket flashed through the War Jack's magical barrier without stopping and slammed against the lower right side of the heavy thick chest armour plating of the War Jack before detonating as intended.

The shape charged warhead spewed a hyper sonic knife like jet of super heated explosive kinetic gases and cut its way through the layers of iron laminate armour, gouging deep into the War Jack's innards, slicing vital mechanical clockworks, cogs and copper piping for steam and aetherium. The impact stumbled the War Jack forcing it to halt. Steam instantly leaked out from the hole in its chest and its movement turned sluggish.

"Good hit!" Wolf cheered as he dug out another Anti Magic Prober and set its magical frequency to match that to the War Jack's magical barrier which he had earlier used a Magic Frequency Scanner to pick up the magical frequency given off by its magical barrier. Once, the scanner found the matching frequency, all he had to do was to set the AMPer to the correct frequency, activate it, which created a small magical barrier and attached it to the rocket's head. It allowed the rocket with the matching magical frequency to pass through the magical barrier in a similar concept of overlapping barriers to strengthen their power, but instead, this became a loophole for the UN to exploit.

The War Jack's movement were now like a drunk, as it lumbered forward on uneven steps, both its arms swinging around to keep its balance. Altied felt the slap on his shoulder and Wolf's yell of loaded. He steadied himself as he took another shot at the War Jack. This time the rocket slammed right into the midriff of the War Jack and with a loud thudding boom, smoke mixed with steam burst out, including fluids of sorts and with a loud groan, the War Jack toppled face down with an earth shaking crash.

"Fark! Get out of the way!" Altied suddenly cried out and he threw himself to one side. Their fighting position suddenly exploded into dust as a massive spiked morning star smashing through their position. Wolf having rolled out of the way at the last minute was still stunned by the near miss.

The other War Jack had made its way through the shield and into their position at the expense of its companion and dozens of soldiers. It retracted the chain, dragging the morning star back before swinging it up and flinging it down, forcing the two Claymore One operatives to run for their lives.

Hitsu swung his LMG towards the War Jack and fired a long stream of bullets at it. Bright sparks erupted from impact points on the magical barrier of the War Jack. It turned towards the direction of Hitsu and steam hissed out from the sides of its bucket helmet. Having succeed in gaining the attention of the War Jack, Hitsu grabbed his heavy weapon and quickly evacuated from his fighting position as the War Jack wrecked it way towards him.

Overhead, the two Protectorate airships as if knowing that they could not defeat them on the ground, increased their bombardment intensity. The two ASAGs started whining as they too increased the pace of their claw arms and continuously feed the PMS projector on their backs. Finally, one of the ASAG made a shriek of warning as its pouches of mana stones had ran dry, while the other ASAG started to panic as well as its reserves started to run low too.

"Beholder to All Claymores! Watch the skies for incoming reinforcements!"

"Finally reinforcements!" Hitsu panted as he ran through the ruins with a War Jack behind him. He sneaked a peek to the skies, but could only see smoke and the weird translucent blue white shimmering of the shield. "Hurry the fark up!"

-----

V - 1 Wingship, Victory Two One One

The massive rear ramps of the Vector wingship was opened. The opening was large enough to allow two MAW spider tanks to enter side by side but at this moment, a huge armored cylindrical pod was parked right at the opening.

A group of excited goblins stood behind the drop pod chatting away as they waited for one of their own to give the word. The group was decked out in camouflage overalls and helmets. Each carried a bag that was almost as large as them and each were armed with a variety of weapons, but most were sporting a shotgun of sorts.

"Oneeee mi nuts!" The goblin crew chief shrieked from the side. He giggled as he waved the goblins forward. "Makee ra deee!"

The armed goblins became even more excited as they lined up at the tail ramp. The other aircrews checked the drop pod once last time and waited until the yellow light turned green. One of the aircrew yanked a cord from the drop pod and a triple parachute burst out. The drag of the parachute dragged the drop pod off the ramp and out into the skies.

The goblins gave a high five to the crew chief as they ran eagerly after the drop pod and threw themselves off the wingship. "Woooo weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Look! No wingsss!"

The goblins started spinning and zooming all over the place in the air as they sky dived after the drop pod which was falling at a rapid pace despite the triple parachute system. The goblins' parachutes deployed one by one after they had their fun and they could see the ongoing action below them. Above them, more parachutes appeared as the 1st Army Rifle Regiment dropped as well to support the operation.

-----

Protectorate Penal Class Cruiser Tenacious

Lord Bishop Major Zakhi stared in shock and surprise at the sky raining some sort of balls. He pushed aside one of the bridge observers and peered through the far seeing tubes to see what in the heavens were those things.

What he saw only made him more flabbergast as he rubbed his eyes, wondering if he was hallucinating. "Are... those goblins?"

The observers all nodded as they replied to the Lord Bishop Major. "Y- yes your holiness! Those... appear to be goblins..."

"Goblins... falling from the skies?" Lord Bishop Major ZaKhi mumbled as he took another look. "What in Ramuh's Hall is going on?"

-----

The drop pod suddenly shook and braking flaps deployed from its side, slowing its speed substantially. As it came to roughly ten meters to the ground, the walls of the drop pod suddenly broke apart and a hulking figure dropped down with a loud boom. Before the smoke even cleared, the metal body of Dijon came bursting out as he ran into the UN defensive shield and right into the Protectorate War Jack, sending it crashing across the ruins.

He stormed over the War Jack that was attempting to climb to its feet and mentally deployed his shoulder mounted recoilless rifle. He rammed the muzzle of the 88 mm revolver cannon through the magical barrier of the War Jack and point blank pointed it right at the bucket head and mentally squeezed the trigger. The recoilless rifle cycled itself with a thunderous roar, the bucket head instantly deformed as a hole appeared in its place.

Dijon did not even need to fire a second shot as the first had already shattered the internals of the War Jack, effectively destroying the war machine. His bulky chassis turned as he scanned the area for other War Jacks to engage and stormed off to the other side of the ruins once he found his targets.

The accompanying goblins landed with a soft thud and they detached their parachutes with pride and started declaring to the shocked 101st ATI operatives. "Wee ar dee 1st Meekanical Suppoot Componyee!"

"Aarborn Gobs to dee res-kill!"