Horde

"Is everything ready?" Ed asked Altea as he had given her a detailed plan on how they were going to capture the metal-eater.

"Yes, Captain, RF-1, 2, and C-2 are ready for deployment, they are waiting for instruction," It replied to him.

"Good. start the plan right away!" he commanded through his smartwatch that connected with the mecha's communication channel.

Ed was not going to join them to capture the space creature as he wanted to know how his pilots fares in an actual mission.

Arnold and Adam were piloting the Red Falcon mechas while Aya piloted the C-2, they did not use the Quick Shield as it was not suited for such a mission.

He was planning to bait some Metal-eater with the C-2 as a bait, it would not need any repair even though the metal-eater damage it as it could always restore itself with the holocaust engine.

It would need to bait some of it away from their den and capture them with a specially made cage. It could last long enough against the metal-eaters so they could bring it back to the ship.

The other two mecha were used as insurance in case there were too many creatures that got baited. They would need to exterminate the metal-eaters before they could swarm the C-2.

"Roger that!" the pilots replied as they launched their mecha from the ship.

Alpha-Charlie was five thousand kilometers away from the den of metal-eater, they did not get too close as to not attract the whole den to Alpha-Charlie.

Individually, the metal-eaters were not a threat to mecha and space ships but there are hundreds of them in a den. If all of them were attacking a mech or spaceship, then it would be crippled in a minute.

The mechas launched and took their respective place according to the plan, The Red Falcons were standing on the Alpha-Charlie to stabilize themselves and increase their accuracy.

They could get targeting data from the Alien ship's sensor to help them aim from such a long distance.

With a thousand kilometers distance between them and their targets, a little deviation could make their laser weapon miss completely.

Their target was not that big, to begin with so they would need to use everything in their possession to increase their accuracy.

Luckily, they were using a laser weapon rather than a ballistic rifle, if they were using a ballistic rifle then their bullet would take longer to reach their target, it would already from its initial location, on the other hand, Laser would arrive within a second so their target would not be able to dodge in time.

Aya with her mecha left the ranged mecha behind as she piloted it toward the den. It took her quite a while to increase the mecha's momentum but once it got fast enough; she did not take too long to reach her target.

She put the C-2 on standby mode once it got closer than five hundred kilometers and let the C-2 float forward with only its momentum. It slowed a bit as it got closer, but it soon reached within two hundred kilometers.

She did not activate the C-2 because she was afraid that it would attract too much metal-eater, she just needed a couple of them to complete the mission.

Once she got to fifty kilometers away from the den, she stopped its momentum so as to not get too close with the den. Getting too close was way too risky.

She waited for the metal-eater to leave their den rather than barge into their den. It took patience to hunt space creatures, just like hunting normal creatures.

They wanted to capture the creature alive, so bombarding their den with their ranged weapon was out of the question.

Thirty minutes passed since they started the mission, but there was no sign of the metal-eater looking for food.

To Ed's satisfaction, none of his people get distracted or lower their guard during this long period of waiting.

They checked their sensor data to make sure nothing went wrong and there would not be an ambush.

"Captain, there is some movement from the den," Altea reported to him.

Ed looked at the data that was displayed on a large screen in the cockpit room. It showed a sudden spike in activity inside the den.

It seems a medium-sized group of fifty was going out of the den. Just a few seconds after that, the image sent by The C-2 showed fifty cow-sized rats flying toward it.

"C-2 retreat slowly, this is out of our expectation, you will need to lure them away," Ed commanded as they did not plan to engage with fifty metal-eater.

The cage could only contain five of them so they would need to dispose of the other metal-eaters, but if they were to attack near the den, then the whole den would be attracted by it.

The C-2 instantly activated its main engine and started to move back toward the Alpha-Charlie. It did not go too fast as to not leave the metal-eater behind.

It tried to maintain a stable pace and not make a sudden movement so the chasing creatures would not be alarmed.

"Rifleman, hold your fire, don't attack without permission," he reminded the other.

Adam and Arnold were already locking on to their targets in case they needed to attack. They would not take any chance, even though the space creature looked harmless.

A moment later, the chasing metal-eater suddenly increased their speed so that the C-2 did not have enough time to increase its speed to escape.

"Captain, we are waiting for an order," Arnold addressed him as the creatures would reach the C-2 any time.

"Hold your fire, don't attack yet!" he denied him as the C-2 was still too close with the den.

"Aya, get back as fast as you can, don't hold back, just fly straight," he told her as they would not be able to back her up if she was too close with the den.

She was five hundred kilometers from the den when the metal-eaters reached her and started to attack her mecha.

"Don't fight back yet, keep running," he told her to keep going as the mecha could still run.

Ed kept his eyes on the C-2 system report. He could see how much damage it received. To his surprise, the C-2 fared worse than their expectation.

Its armor could not stop the metal-eaters teeth and claws, the only thing slowing them down was the regeneration ability.

At this rate, the metal eater would eat at the C-2's flight system and it would not be able to fight or run when that happened.

It barely reached six hundred kilometers when Ed concluded it was as far as it could run, "Open fire!" he commanded.

The C-2 spun its body like a top, sending the metal-eaters that were latching on it flying away, it drew the giant scythe on its back and started to attack them while the Red Falcon Started to attack them too.

Adam would kill a metal-eater every time he fired his laser rifle while Arnold also did quite a decent job.

The one having trouble was Aya. She could hardly use her scythe to hit the relatively small target as the mecha could not move as fast.

In the end, she put the scythe back and used the C-2's secondary armament instead. It fired the scattergun at the incoming Metal eater.

It could not kill them instantly as they had a resilient metal fur, but another shot would do the job.

It did not take long before only three of them left and Ed commanded them to stop attacking and bring the captured creature back.

Aya had captured them with the cage prepared and tried to fly back when the C-2's sensor could detect a strange sound wave that could flow in space.

After a few hundred kilometers, the sound wave disperses, "What is that?" Ed asked the Altea.

"Sorry, Captain. We don't have enough data to know, but it is safe to conclude it was a call for help," It replied.

"Will the horde come?" he asked warily.

"According to our sensor, the den was barely out of its range. If we had fought them closer to the den, then we would have lost the C-2," the AI answered.

Ed had made the right decision to lure the creatures away, if he didn't then he would lose a precious mecha.

He sent the C-2 because he did not want to lose a mecha in exchange for a few space rats as his other mecha would need an extensive repair if it were to be eaten by the creatures but it turns out he almost lost a mecha that cost ten times his other mecha instead.

"I don't know if it was luck or wisdom, but it seems that I did the right thing," he mused.

"Mission success, I'm bringing our target back," Aya reported.

There was one thing that they learned from the last deployment, "Never underestimate any space creature, even the weakest could eat through a mecha's armor." They reminded themselves.