Knight's line and one of the Sherlocks stepped into the hole she left behind. The enlisted support mechs worked to keep the combat mechs around them supplied, and Jessica13 was surprised to see that large groups of the Auburn townsfolk did the same. A couple had even taken control of any enemy mechs they could once the pilots were killed and had prepared for combat.

The enemy Lancers closed the distance quickly and opened fire both on the Knights and the buildings around them. It appeared that they wanted to cause as much damage and destruction as possible and pushed forward so violently that the fighting devolved into something of a perverse melee.

Hammerhand's shield came up here or there to intercept the heavier attacks, but he was soon involved in the battle. He took a step away from the Knights to gain the space he needed to allow him to swing his hammer without fear of catching any of his people.

The invaders took heavy losses but continued relentlessly and attacked with a kind of recklessness that showed a determination for victory that was no doubt motivated by thoughts of Athena’s wrath and displeasure should they fail.

They outnumbered the Knights significantly and even with the losses, there were simply too many of them.

Jessica13 did as Mini suggested. Her instincts told her to be in the middle of the fighting to help where she could, but Windchime's warnings still rang in her head. If she charged head-first into a fight like this, they would literally be torn to pieces.

No, the best she could do was let them disregard her as a support mech for the moment, take her shots when she could, and always stay on the move to help others to maintain their higher rate of firepower.

It was painful to watch, especially when the Lancers attempted to swarm onto the Raptor. The rockets continued to fire, found their targets, and annihilated them, but they were close enough to climb without being in range of the missiles.

A Predator stepped among them and she gasped, certain that it was one of Athena’s that had come to finish what the enemy mechs had started with its chainsword. The attacking mechs obviously thought the same, as they stepped back to give it space to work. Instead, however, it swung the weapon at the closest Lancer, thrust the blade into the cockpit, and carved through the armor until she could hear the screams from inside. The weapon found the pilot and was suddenly covered in red.

Her initial fear dissolved into a slightly hysterical laugh when she realized that the Predator was piloted by what was most likely an Auburn resident. The mech had obviously been one of those retrieved during the battle and thankfully, was still in good enough condition to do its lethal work.

It swung toward the next Lancer and one of the Cinders moved alongside. Between them, they managed to deliver a concerted attack that either destroyed the enemy or drove them back and away from the Raptor, which had barely noticed the mayhem and its close call.

"Shit!" she shouted with a brief surge of exultation and used the moment of confusion to fire at the scattered invaders. She managed to land a couple of effective shots and kill two of the pilots and the mechs jerked and staggered as the AIs tried to take control.

A small group of townsfolk raced from one of the nearby buildings and she gaped as they ducked and dodged toward the mechs she had partially disabled. Their appearance was both sudden and unexpected as she would have thought that any that had elected not to join the battle initially would be hunkered in the assumed protection of their homes.

It was the kind of action that usually went unnoticed in a fight like this, where most of the attention was drawn to the larger mechs shooting at each other and tiny, squishy humans who weren't in mechs were mostly ignored. The assumption was that they would be killed by stray fire or explosions that hurled shrapnel everywhere and so needed no real attention.

While that was a real danger, these people seemed not to care. With no apparent thought to the danger they might be in, they scrambled hastily onto the mechs, worked together to pry them open, and climbed inside before they closed it again.

The mech fell silent and didn’t move at all now, despite having a new pilot. Unfortunately, Jessica13 couldn't remain where she was to watch the saga unfold and turned her attention to the battle around her. Maybe they were trying to work out how to operate it or possibly find a way to remove the dead body. Sure enough, when she turned once again to glance hastily in that direction, the hatch opened and a mangled corpse was shoved out.

She smiled as she continued to move through the battlefield to deliver ammo and supplies to those Knights who called for it. The unusual incident remained in her mind, though, and she realized that a number of other mechs merely stood unmoving while the combat ebbed and flowed around them. She had claimed a few of them and others showed signs that the pilot had been killed either through a hard external impact or by a bullet from another long-distance shooter.

But instead of an AI having taken control where the pilot was no longer capable of it, they remained absolutely still like they were powered down. She wondered how many of them had an Auburn pilot inside.

"Tinker, I think something’s happening," she said over the comms as she collected ammo from his stockpile.

"Well, if you haven't noticed yet, lassie, we're in the middle of a fucking battle!" the man shouted.

"No, I've seen the locals taking over the mechs I and others have left without a pilot," she said, picked up a couple of the crates, and put them on the mag clamp on her back. "They're climbing into the mechs and not doing anything with them."

He paused

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