Arkhan intended to capitalize on the fact that the suicide ships had poor armor and even worse shielding, along with inadequate coverage from their improvised armaments. Just by looking at the ships it was clear to see that they were not built for the role they had been placed in. Civilian vessels that ranged from roughly twice the size of an average pontoon boat to being over 60 meters long made up the entire ‘defense force’ and even ships that should have been nearly identical were outfitted in wildly different ways.

“This is like looking at a bunch of Ork ships from 40k, only far, far more pathetic. All they need now is a bunch of people screaming ‘WAAAAGH’ at the top of their lungs and you could just barely mistake them for a very poorly equipped Ork raiding party.”

“Sir, are you talking about the Urk?”

“No. Just disregard what I said.”

“Yes sir.”

Arkhan flew across the near vacuum of space inside his powered armor. The backpack for his armor pushed him forward at a decent speed for now, while the sensors within helped him navigate the debris and twisted metal that remained from the previous three assaults by the suicide boats. The fourth wave was incoming, and Arkhan had realized that their shields and hulls were not capable of withstanding his Mobile Suit Golems, even when they were not in ‘Real Mode’. Thus, he was leading an assault of human-sized killer machines into battle against about five dozen suicide boats.

“Do you all mind if I take the first shot?” Arkhan asked his creations.

“Not at all. We will support you as you tear them to ribbons.”

“Excellent.”

Arkhan’s armor sped up as the sub manipulator arms stored within the backpack and the armored skirt near his waist popped out. In each of the six manipulators (two in the front skirt and four in the backpack) a weapon materialized.

“I’ve not even begun to get started and your end is already assured! Your cards read…. Death!” Arkhan shouted as the hands of his oversized armor flew off and began to fire particle beams from their fingers at the ships from various directions. Despite the hands having flown off, underneath them were the true hands of the powered armor, and while the right one now held a Fedayeen Rifle, the left was covered by the Gatling shield from a Gouf Custom. The shield was specially treated to resist energy attacks in the event that the suit’s I-Field failed, and the entire powered armor had the quirk of having all of its bullet-firing weapons be not only fire bullets that ignored shielding but also had delayed explosives built in.

These simple but effective boosts to his suit turned even the simple 9mm machine gun into a fully automatic miniature grenade launcher. Mounted on the waist were a pair of wire guided missile launchers and on the lower legs were a pair of six tube missile launchers. All in all, this suit was damn far more powerful than almost any of Arkhan’s MSG creations, as it had some of the best features from some of the best of his creations. With access to the entire arsenal of weapons available to his creations and power to spare, this nameless armor would be a near unstoppable beast in the right hands.

That is, so long as they actually knew how to bring out its best, of course. Arkhan was new to the whole ‘Space Combat via Powered Armor’ thing, so while he was definitely in sync with his new toy, he lacked the experience and training needed to bring out its full potential. It was good that he was using these shitty suicide ships as practice, because he likely would have been blown to bits by a purpose-built warship.

Arkhan left his creations behind as he picked up speed and began to weave between the suicide ships as they desperately tried to shoot him down. As he flew around them the ‘Hand Bits’ continued to lay into the ships, occasionally sinking one or two while crippling others. The six sub manipulator arms seemed to flail wildly as they fired their mix of kinetic and explosive weapons, but each one was merely switching from one target to the next as Arkhan moved in and out of range. Missiles from the two launchers on his waist and the two on his legs occasionally had one of their missiles hit something, but most simply added to the spectacle that Arkhan was putting on for the cameras.

One of the smaller and slightly more nimble ships attempted to ram Arkhan while he flew in front of it, but as though he was a fly before a man with poor hand-eye coordination he just buzzed around it with ease.

“MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA!” Arkhan yelled as he made laps around the offending craft, firing his Faydeen rifle and Gatling Shield into it with reckless impunity. As the ship slowly lost power, Arkhan sped away to his next target as the hostile ship triggered its explosive cargo.

This time five of the suicide ships veered off and tried to take him on, but Arkhan was prepared. The ‘Hand Bits’ floated over to him as the six sub manipulator arms leveled their weapons towards the oncoming threat alongside the two regular arms.

“Get a load of this! Fire all of the guns at once….”

A sustained barrage from ten weapons tore through the flimsy shielding and hull of the suicide ships, and soon enough they detonated in five brilliant balls of molten metal and superheated plasma.

“….and explode into space!”

Once he had finished dealing with the offending vessels, Arkhan turned back and watched his creations deal with the survivors. While he had certainly damaged quite a few ships as he had sped in between them, he had only sunk about nineteen of the sixty suicide ships. It was a good start but seeing as these were not dedicated military vessels he did not feel nearly as fulfilled as he thought he would be. Yes, he had done this to test out the limits of what his summoned powered armor could do, but these improvised ‘warships’ were not nearly enough of a challenge for him.

Still, there was no need to get cocky. As far as he was concerned, while these ships were too easy, that was only because they were not true military vessels. Even a simple corvette could quite possibly be more than he could deal with alone, not to mention that trying to take on something that big in something as small as his powered armor was pure insanity. Sure, he would beat it in terms of speed and maneuverability, but it would still take ages for him to whittle away its shields and hull while desperately trying to avoid a near-certain 1-hit-kill from the corvette’s guns.

He needed training, and lots of it. Relying on the automatic targeting systems in the armor and the much improved and far less dangerous fusion of the EXAM, HADES and ALICE systems to boost his abilities would only do so much. Instead, he needed to get better himself and not simply rely on his ability to escape death to bail him out of difficult situations. After all, he had no idea if there would be a situation where he would be unable to use that ‘get out of death free’ card. He needed to learn how to not just be a good leader, politician, admiral and general, but also a good frontline fighter. He hoped it would never happen, but he had a sinking feeling that he would one day need such knowledge, whether he wanted it or not.

Arkhan was lost in contemplation for a while as he watched his innumerable hordes of killer machines rip the fourth and final suicide charge a couple hundred new *ssholes. With every ship sunk there was a brilliant fireball that send molten and twisted metal flying, and in all honesty the sight was quite beautiful. The trailing lights of thrusters, photoreceptors and particle beams gave made the warzone look like a summer night, with hundreds of fireflies set against a starlit sky.

It almost made him forget that he was in the middle of a warzone.

What snapped him back to the real world was the impact of a piece of debris from one of the exploding ships. It did not critically damage his powered armor, but instead just sent him flying off in another direction. Arkhan stabilized himself and rushed back to the fight just as it was ending and chose not to risk something like that happening again too soon.

“Well, I think that went better than expected. Aside from that last moment there, I feel like this was a decent tutorial. Once this war is over, do you mind helping me learn how to actually fight in space properly? I really do with to eventually take on an actual military ship one day and would be most appreciative if you were to teach me what you know.”

Arkhan did not ask this to any specific member of his MSGs or MAGs, but instead spoke to all of them directly. He wanted to get the most out whatever knowledge they could share, and he was going to make good use of their wealth of experiences. They all agreed to their creator’s request, and some of the Named Units and Unnamed Units began to try and work together to create lesson plans. If they could be of use to their God, then they would be.

The battles, if you could call them that, were wrapping up in the other four systems as well. Now it was only a matter of time before the full might of Arcadia fell upon the old, decrepit and absolutely evil Angelus Holy Union. The war was nearing its end, and an apocalypse was on its way to the lands of the Angels.

Thousands of multi-mile wide masses of rock and metal were sent through hyperspace and arrived at their destinations. Each one of them was filled with nuclear bombs that were slaved to go off at the same time. Over each world still held by Holy Union forces and over each world that had only civilians of the Holy Union, dozens of asteroids filled with a deadly cargo hung like the blade of a guillotine.

Once the last system was taken, Operation: Fallen Down would begin, and the doomsayers amongst the Angelus Holy Union’s clergy would be proven right. The day of judgement was at hand, and the end was nigh. The sky was about to fall, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.