The Terminus Trading Company forces advanced with little delay through the outer suburbs of the Capital city before the Volga could mount a proper defence, capturing half of the target within the first hour of the battle.

But after that, progress ground to a halt. It seemed that the Volga did have Mecha, and a lot of them, but they had been stored within the inner ring of the city and hadn't been deployed out to the perimeter with the rest of their forces. Instead, they had dug in and prepared to hold everything behind the original wall of the fortress city for as long as they could.

The bombardment from the Super Heavy Mecha was taking a toll on them, though, as well as the city behind them, and sporadic bursts from the Cutters' main weapons were keeping the city's defensive barrier deactivated, leaving them exposed to the outside assault.

Two hours into the assault, Mary Tarith sent a planetwide broadcast demanding their surrender in the name of mercy to the civilians, who had no part in the crimes of their government.

The response was to send a surface-to-orbit missile at her Destroyer.

That was about all the proof that Max needed to determine that there could be no peaceful resolution to this situation, so he started making a plan to take the government buildings in the middle of the Capital, with a minimum of destruction to the Fortress City itself.

The floors were high enough to march Mecha through, even ones as tall as Cleansing Light, and the government buildings were at the deepest core of the fortress, behind every imaginable form of defence.

He wasn't alone in the city, though, and the Cygnus Compliance Fleets had sent attacking forces to three other sides of the perimeter, crushing the defenders and stopping at the defensive wall while they staged for a coordinated attack.

Going by the numbers that the Alliance had provided, there were just over two hundred million people in this city, so eliminating it from orbit was out of the question. Not even the Hunters would be impressed by wiping out so many bystanders during their attack.

So, Max made a more civilized plan. The Fast Attack Crusaders would rush the wall and light everything within a city block on either side with the Fusion Flamers. Then the Super Heavy Mecha would bombard the defensive lines into pulp, with the assistance of Cleansing Light and six Cutters, so that the main force could rush past them into the fortress and begin capturing the vital points that they had identified.

Power relay stations, water pumps, sanitation sites. They would all be disabled within the next few hours while the Mecha forces advanced, leaving the city in the dark and breaking the morale of the civilians to decrease the chances of an uprising once the city fell.

[If we all have our orders, begin the assault. Cleansing Light will descend in one minute to breach the main gates and lead the push inside.] Max commanded, and the Fast Attack Crusaders leaped into action, melting steel and concrete buildings to slag and torching the defensive positions with atomic flames.

This wasn't the first time that the Volga had seen the Fusion Flamers, but it was the first time that they had directly been used on a defensive fortification, and the result was devastating even before the artillery began, with the sound of Thunder Guns filling the air and echoing down the hallways of the Captial City.

Max waited as the defences crumbled and began his descent back to the surface.

[Fifteen seconds until the main gates are breached. Terminus forces, get in position for the charge.] He ordered, taking aim at the hundred-meter-wide gates as he rushed back toward the surface.

The Disruptors turned the gates to ash in a single shot, and Max rushed inside the city's cavernous interior, followed by the men under Klinger's command, who had managed to claim the prime spot closest to the Titan Class Mecha.

If anything moved near them, it was obliterated. If there was a heat signature that they thought might move, it was obliterated. Not even the small rodents of the city were spared the fury of the Mecha advance on the off chance that they had been weaponized.

Two blocks in, the Volga had set up a defensive checkpoint, made up of what Max was certain were recently recruited, as he could see their flabby hands shaking and terror in their eyes as the mighty form of Cleansing Light bore down on them.

Barely a third even managed to get a shot off before the laser array had wiped them out, leaving nothing intact of their position.

[Gather here and spread out. I want every side street cleared. If they look like civilians, only shoot if they move. We're not here to depopulate the place. They're not Klem. But I don't want any casualties. If they seem in any way hostile, take them out.] He ordered.

That was good enough for the soldiers, and the force began to spread out through the city, meeting up with the Cygnus-based Mecha to form a rapidly closing net on the bottom five floors of the city.

Once they had taken the government buildings at the core, Max intended to spread his forces through the upper floors and clear the whole place, but for now, his hope was that once the government fell, the rest of the city would become at least a bit more compliant, which would save lives on both sides.

Max smiled to himself at the thought of what Nico would say if she could see him now, sparing possible enemies just because they were sentient beings. But little did he know that Nico had her own problems at the moment, and they were in a very familiar form.

The Titan Class Mecha had been located. It had come for the city under Terminus, but the signals from the fleet couldn't make it through the interference of the city and the battle to inform Max of the situation.