[ICI MASTER TO LOCALIZED COMMAND: SCORPIONS IN PLAY.

AUTHENTICATION AS FOLLOWS: A331091 DELTA.

CHECK SYSTEMS:

SAS: ONLINE

RCS: ONLINE

SFR: ONLINE, RUNNING SILENT @ 2% OUTPUT, HEATSINK @ 0.32% CAPACITY

204 MILL RAILGUN: ONLINE, MUNITIONS LOADED, MULTIPLE STAGE MAGAZINE AT MAX CAPACITY.

8 MILL SECONDARIES: ONLINE, RESUPPLY SYSESSFULL.

20 MILL SECONDARIES: ONLINE, RESUPPLY SYSESSFULL.

ERA: LOADED AND s.h.i.+ELDED.

ALL PRIMARY SYSTEMS ONLINE AND REARMED, ICI REPORTS 6 UNITS READY FOR DEPLOYMENT, COMMENCING DE ORBIT BURN

DEPLOYMENT PATTERN BETA.

 6 UNITS ON STATION, ETA: 32 MINUTES

LOADOUT TYPE 8 'MULTI ROLE AREA DOMINATION'.]

Deploying from a cloaked station in high orbit, 6 s.h.i.+elded Guardian type 14 heavy infantry support 'Scorpion' units started their atmospheric incursion while their onboard ICI units synchronized with the operational command net.

"Ooo~ Neat. You guys will get to see something extremely awesome in a moment."

Without explaining Dax got up from his seat where he was treating Xi's injuries and looked upwards into the ceiling of the CAS-7A. At the same time, the roof turned into a single large monitor and displayed the thin air above.

"What's hap-..." 

As Xi turned to look up like Dax did she was at a momentary loss for words as she saw something truly strange. In the sky above them, a group of purple meteors was pa.s.sing them from behind as they slowly bled off their alt.i.tude and speed.

"Looks like initial guidance is good, and so is the active heats.h.i.+eld… Except for number 3, it must have been hit by a micro meteor at some point doing storage."

"W-what is that?"

Finally getting her words out, Xi stared with an open mouth at the strange objects above her.

"It's reinforcements. They're heading the same way we are, you can look at them in more detail then."

Patting the ignorant Xi on the head Dax was about to turn off the monitor when he was almost tackled from behind.

""Why are they purple?""

Turning around Dax found the two homunculi twins with eager looks in their eyes which made him think that they would keep asking him about it until they got an answer, or died of thirst, whichever came first.

"It's because of the active heat s.h.i.+elding. Each unit is pumping out highly compressed specialized gas out the bottom which heats up and ionizes due to the outside air friction, carrying heat away from the craft while insulating it."

"But why isn't it just immediately igniting?"

"And how can the pump even overcome the outside pressure? What kind of mana formation is it using?"

"Because highly compressed gas is insanely cold, and it's not mana, that pump is powered by a fusion reactor. But that's enough questions for now, I need to finish up treating Xi before we arrive."

---

Meanwhile back on the ground in the last remaining sanctuary of the Ta'ai Lux had finished coordinating the last part of her advance team on the ground, now she just needed to prepare everything for when the main force arrived.

"On me, shoot to kill. Keep the engineers close to me."

[DIRECTIVE CONFIRMED.]

Turning to lady Grishu and the rest of the guards Lux wore a thin smile as she waved in a light manner.

"I'll be right back, stay inside the wire."

"Bu-"

"No buts. Stay put Grishu, help will be there for your husband and the other sick people in about 10 minutes, but for that, I need to clear out a secondary landing site."

Leaving with those words Lux made sure the gate was closed behind her as she took a rifle presented to her by one of the Reaper drones who formed a formation around her and some stripped down UGAV's carrying a mix of explosives and other supplies. The very second Lux stepped outside the gates, monsters all infected with purple crystals started swarming her, but she barely reacted to them as the drones around her neutralized them without issue.

(This area looks good, just as it did from the satellite footage.)

About 800 meters from the castle was the area Lux was looking for, it was a shallow stone quarry with spa.r.s.e vegetation and a few ma.s.sive trees.

"Set up here, establish area security."

[ROGER, BREAKING FORMATION.]

As time was of the essence, neither Lux nor the drones aimed for select fire or preserving ammunition as they quickly cleared out the monsters in the area. While the sounds of gunfire and screams of death were all around her, Lux started throwing specialized grenades into the deeper part of the quarry where stone had been dug out, as the grenades detonated they sprayed out a white foam which quickly expanded and hardened, flattening out the area.

[STAND CLEAR, FIRE IN THE HOLE.]

With a callout from ICI, some of the larger trees were blown apart by explosives as other Reaper drones not busy exterminating the local population of monsters started spreading out the same kind of stabilizing mats they had used inside the castle, slowly creating a large enough landing field to accommodate the ma.s.sive GE-05 landing crafts which would do most of the heavy lifting doing the operation.

-

"... That should be the last of them."

Shooting a human shaped monster's leg off with her rifle, Lux watched it fall down into the last recognizable part of the quarry as she threw a pair of the specialized foam grenades after it. Looking around while the monster was being buried alive and sealed up with metal mats which quickly hardened on top of the foam, Lux admired her work as the first GE-05 transport appeared over the horizon. With a roar which one could feel inside their stomach, the first GE-05 used all 4 of its bus sized engines to decelerate as it came in for a landing while it folded up its gigantic wings to fit inside the 100 square meter landing area. Not even sparing the time to power down its engines the GE-05 lowered its cargo ramp and unloading immediately started. First came all the ready to deploy drones of different sizes and shapes hauling out scientific and chemical manufacturing equipment, then the live personal cloud finally disembark and stretch their legs.

"The time is short people, satellites have already picked up signs of movement of the sanctuaries."

Not wasting the time with a greeting, Lux immediately started on a briefing while gesturing her subordinates to follow her while she continued talking.

"Iris I want you to take a look at some sick people infected with the bioweapon, Dax will be here within 2 hours together with two specialists, use however many drones and medical bays you need to stabilize all of them before that."

"Understood."

"We will take care of that."

Answering in her usual flat manner while remaining completely without facial expression, Iris had a barely visible gleam in her eyes which told Lux she was taking the situation seriously.

"Alice you're on wire security, when your exoskeleton arrives I want you in that at all times to coordinate traffic and work communication together with Lilly."

"Okay~"

"Got it!"

While Alice was still a bit nervous, a definite and steadfast determination was clearly visible in both her voice and expression. Even if she was not completely ready for active duty she had been entrusted with keeping the base safe and handling communications.

"Lux, Mare, Terra and Solaris will be with me. We'll be doing a bunch of different stuff including wiping out the large crystal infected monsters, collecting samples, setting up the contingency and a lot of other stuff. I hope all of you slept in while waiting in orbit, this is going to be a long 48 hours to come."

"So what will Dax be doing while we work our a.s.ses off?"

Trying to act cool and defying, Lilly failed to hide her intentions as her ears had a rosy tint and she was playing with her hair.

"..."

"Lewd."

While Lux was at a momentary loss for words, Mare did at she had done a lot after learning from both Lux and Dax and spoke her mind without any regard for social stigmas.

"W-w-what!? I'm not lewd! I'm asking a serious question!"

While Lilly was steaming while trying to excuse her behaviour, Terra walked up to Lux and placed a hand on her shoulder and quietly whispered.

"Please tell me Dax will spend some time with every one of the girls…"

"Why?"

"Because they are intolerable at the moment, like addicts severely craving their next dose."

Both sharing a 100 yard stare for a single second, Lux realized how important it would be for Dax to at least talk a bit with the girls.

"Yeah, I hear you… I'll send it up the food chain and see what happens."

---

"Okay you two love birds, please separate a bit from each other. We're landing now."

Calling out to Chad and Xi who had been spending the time since they recovered in each other's arms, Dax uncharacteristically felt his nerves acting up a tiny bit as the CAS-7A came in for final approach at landing site alpha.

(Even after all this time I still haven't found out what to do about Alice, Solaris and Lilly… Some fine spec ops commander I am, getting scared over something like this.)

(Ah, what a sweet smell~✿ Love is in the air~✿✿✿)

But as Dax was dealing with his own internal struggle, his cursed demon sword chose that very moment to poke fun at him.

(Oi, do you want to turn into a piece of sc.r.a.p metal? Because that can be arranged extremely fast.)

Uncontrollably leaking bloodl.u.s.t Dax gripped the sword with an extreme amount of force while he formed a large smile on his face.

(Ouch! Stop, please you're bending me out of shape! How are you even that strong?! O-okay, I'm sorry! Let me offer you some real advice as an apology!)

(You have 3 seconds. 3… 2…-)

(Okay! Okay! I get it!... Do you care for them, the girls that so openly declared their affection for you? If yes then stop worrying so much about the entire thing, spend some time with them, interact in a way that you feel is an honest representation of yourself.)

(... Is that really okay?)

With Dax's bloodl.u.s.t evaporating like the morning dew, Chad finally felt like he was able to breathe again. While he didn't know what had just happened, he was absolutely sure he didn't want to find out.

(Yeah it's fine, don't worry so much about it~✿ If they really came to have feelings for you, then they liked you as you are. No need to be overly adapting to make sure you're perfect, you mortals take this entire 'love' affair too seriously~ Just go with the flow and you'll be fine.)

(Okay. I'll try that out, but the mission comes first. If we f.u.c.k up this operation then it's an outright war with the Empire and their sanctuaries.)