As the initial recon and demolitions teams were returning, the vast majority of the force was headed out into the city to take advantage of the stage that the first wave had set for them. The Narsians had underestimated the might of a Phalanx Class Mecha, since they had never seen one before and the data on them is strictly confidential, even within the Kepler Military, so there was nothing on the planetary servers for them to have stolen.

Instead of charging the mighty war machine, they had turned their attention to the forces advancing from the rest of the city, encircling their position and trapping them in the city core.

Even the mighty artillery that they had thought would take out any true threat to their security had given up on targeting the Phalanx Class Mecha and had begun shelling the denser clusters of Heavy Mecha.

General Mons wouldn’t stand for that though, and the Ion Bombard Array had been pounding away at the artillery positions for the past few minutes, reducing most of them to rubble and forcing the others into hiding to prevent annihilation.

[Everyone to the bunkers. They have prepared a large enough position for us to relax inside with our transports and mecha.] Max ordered the unit, leading them to an underground parkade for large transports that had been reinforced to withstand artillery bombardment._.

It was a tight fit vertically for the Crusaders, and those who had taller weapons on their carapace armor had to crouch a little to avoid hitting the roof, but it was secure and well-provisioned. They even had a fully staffed kitchen set up for the Special Tactics Group and the one other Mecha Company that had been assigned to this shelter.

Since they reused existing parkades, for the most part, each one only held one or two units. This strategy had the side effect of spreading them out all over the quadrant of town closest to the Staging Area, but it also served to secure a large area against attack. The building that Max and his unit were assigned to was right on the edge of town, where the transports from the mine were unloaded to a complex conveyor system that fed a number of industrial facilities within the city.

“Have those conveyor tunnels been fully blocked off?” Max asked, looking at the layout of the bunker.

“There are four rows of blast doors currently closed and sealed. One at the secondary junction, one at the first junction, and then a double set here at the warehouse. Since there is hope to reclaim the city, they didn’t want to destroy critical underground infrastructure.” The traffic controller that had led them to their parking area confirmed Max’s suspicions.

[You heard the man. We will be setting a double guard patrol of the infantry. I want guards on the conveyors and the doors, with movement sensors and thermal imaging to be placed further down the line, and in two rows at the entrance. Both around the perimeter of the building and a block away. I don’t want anything sneaking up on us while we are resting.] Max ordered.

The staff at the bunker thought he was a bit paranoid, but that wasn’t uncommon for elite units. They themselves had a constant patrol around the building, and the Kepler Military occupied this entire quadrant of the city. They weren’t going to stop him though. Having a Special Tactics unit looking out for them made them feel more secure as well.

One by one, everyone who wasn’t assigned to this shift on duty filed out of their transports and mecha to go see what the Military had come up with as a buffet for them. A meal that didn’t use up their own supplies was always welcome, and some of the Field Kitchens served very good food. At least compared to the shelf stable rations.

[Nico, that means you too. Come out and be social, it’s good for your mental health.] Max insisted, watching Tarith’s Rage to see if he was going to have to force her to come out.

She did come out without complaint, but he could see the annoyance on her face as she stood on the carapace armor. It didn’t seem to be for him though, but for her situation. She wasn’t fully used to her Cyborg conversion yet, and it didn’t have the same physical capability that her old body did. It was likely to be much more durable though, and Nico was willing to test the reality against the design specs.

The winch that most pilots use to lower themselves is only rated for two hundred kilos. Nico’s new body weighed nearly twice that. She would have to replace the winch eventually, for convenience’s sake, but for now, she ordered Tarith’s Rage to raise a Gauntlet for her to stand on and then lower her towards the ground. Once it got near waist height, she simply jumped down with a resounding bang, only slightly muffled by the rubber sole of her boots.

“Hopefully I can get back up there,” Nico grumbled as she came to stand by Max, bumping her shoulder into him in greeting.

“We will find a way. There’s a material processor here, the same as in the Landers, so we can upgrade the winch on Tarith’s Rage if you want.” Max offered.

“Yeah, that’s likely a good idea. I’ll see if I can still climb up though. The cybernetics are very strong, but throwing a chunk of alloy that high through the air isn’t an easy feat.” Nico gave Max a wry chuckle and followed him to the line for the buffet.

“Wait, do you still need to eat? Or I should say, Can you? I don’t know much about Full Conversions, they didn’t have them on my side of town growing up.” Max asked, curious about her new status.

“You know the supplementary nutrition liquid pouches? I need about one of those a month for actual nutrition. However, my System Functions are still altering this body. The material that it’s made of is really compatible with the nanobots, and they seem to be having a lot of fun with it. My first physical upgrade cut down on my need to eat or sleep, replacing a lot of it with photosynthesis, and I can feel the incoming energy flow already as the System tries to adapt to the new body.

Because they did the limbs first, then realized they needed to do the rest, I managed to transfer almost all of the nanobots to the new body as the doctors worked, it wasn’t like when they do a straight brain transfer from an old body to a new cyborg shell. I didn’t lose many functions at all, and the System didn’t need to put too much into rebuilding itself.” Nico’s explanation gave Max a lot to think about, but it would give the doctors even more of a revelation.

There was a chance that they had been doing conversions all wrong from a System standpoint. Done this way, it was quite possible for a full conversion to keep a good part of their system intact.historical

“What are our orders anyhow?” Nico asked while Max was pondering her last answer.

“Standby. We aren’t part of the main assault plan, all the recon elements will be waiting until the city is taken or the advance grinds to a halt.” Max sighed.