War Core 4, Chapter 38.

Chapter 38.

“Wow, I’ve never seen anything like that,” Hugh said as the battleship finally walked out of the shipyard. It was the largest mech he had ever seen.

“Looks like the GCA patterned it off the Iowa class battleships and this baby takes more than a single admiral to operate it. Believe it or not, I have a crew of twenty sailors in combat pods helping me with this monster,” Nix said. The admiral sounded like a kid with a new toy, and Hugh couldn’t blame him.

“Test it out and then we need to get moving,” Hugh ordered.

They could all feel the overpressure as the main guns fired, the huge 16-inch shells obliterating a pair of automated frigates sailing toward Hugh’s other ships. The range on the big guns was more than any other weapon in his arsenal, save for the tomahawk missiles. Too bad they didn’t have the resources to build more, a small fleet of these would be almost impossible to stop.

“We’re good, ready to move out when you are, Hugh,” Nix said.

“Everyone else ready?” Hugh asked. They all responded affirmatively. Hugh thought for a moment reflecting on this being their last battle and realizing he had been too caught up in the stress of the fight to interact with his soldiers much.

“What units do we have with us today? Is it a mix, or were you able to bring complete units to the fight?” Hugh asked.

“Sir, I’m proud to say we have the 3rd Infantry Division controlling our ground forces today and the 4th Fighter wing piloting our air mechs. As for your naval support, I called a few of my friends, and the ships are all helmed by retired Navy combat veterans,” Admiral Nix reported.

Hugh knew about some of these units and his database filled him in on the rest. The 3rdInfantry was formed during the first world war and had been in the thick of the action since then. They were called the Rock of the Marne for their performance during that battle and have kept up their reputation as deadly and skilled soldiers to this day. The 4th Fighter Wing had been in action since the Korean War and was known for having the highest number of enemy fighter kills of any squadron in the war. Hugh knew that Nix would have only brought the best to represent the Navy and the way they were handling their ships proved it.

“Let me speak to everyone, then we’ll finish this,” Hugh said over the command channel before switching to the all-hands channel that connected to everyone involved, even the gamers.

“This is it, everyone. To the north lies whatever horror the GCA has dreamed up as their guardian. If we lose to the GCA’s monsters, we lose not just our world, but the entire galaxy as their rotten system crumbles around us. The Ssath are also waiting somewhere out there, waiting to defeat us and turn our world into a hunting preserve.

“I’ll give you everything I have, up to and including my life today to defeat our foes, and I ask you to do the same. Today you fight for everything, every loved one you have, your children, parents, and their future families are all depending on what you do now. Tear through the enemy and let nothing stop you, whether it be Ssath or GCA. Make proud those thousands who served in your units over the decades and centuries before, for I believe they are watching us today. Show them you still uphold their traditions, show them the line is unbroken.

“I’m proud to serve with and lead each and every one of you, whether you be military or civilian. It’s an honor I shall never forget. Now, the time for words is over, we march north, and we will shake the foundations of the universe with our actions today!” Hugh said.

“Hugh, it’s our honor to serve with you. We all know you didn’t ask for this to happen to you, but you stepped up and saved who knows how many people with your actions. Can we go kill some mechs now?” Maddison said. Laughter broke out over the comm channel and Hugh couldn’t help but join in.

The commanders quickly reigned things in and they started the various units moving. His troops from the serpent forward base had already linked up with the forces at Hugh’s forward base and as a combined force, they pushed north, fighting hard against the constant stream of units coming toward them. At the command post, the bulk of his army, bolstered by the pod-controlled units that had been defending the millipede nest, marched north.

Fighters covered the advance, and the battleship exited the water and marched along behind the rest of the formation. Light mechs provided a screen in every direction and as they moved, Madison helped Hugh adjust the formation to get the best combination of units into a position where they could support each other if an enemy popped up unexpectedly. Their pace was set by the slowest unit, the battleship, but with the speed increase upgrade, it wasn’t quite as painful a pace as it could have been.

With the army gone, the defense of the command post was left to the garrison forces. Hugh could tell the gamers were giving their all. He tapped into their comm channel and gone was the constant bickering, they were all laser-focused on buying the army the most time they could by prioritizing targets and using the construction drones to keep every defender they could repaired and in the fight. It was an impossible task, but the gamers were pulling it off, their efforts slowing the inexorable advance of the automated forces.

It was the same story at the serpent forward base, there were fewer defending mechs there, but they were holding for the time being. They only faced attack from the north, but with each loss the enemy inflicted, their firepower decreased, allowing the next wave to push closer. Once they fell, the attackers they had been holding back would march to the beach and then join the attack on the command post.

“Hugh, we’ve spotted a small base up here near the volcano, I think this is where the automated mechs are spawning from,” Tran advised. Hugh linked into the view of one of the mechs in that area, getting his first close-up look at the volcano. Set into the side of the volcano was a huge metal door, which was now opened wide. There was enough space to march three of his battleships into the area side by side. In front of the open door was a score of factory buildings that kept spitting out attack units that marched right into the guns of Hugh’s advance force.

Shots from his main battle mechs and the supporting artillery mechs started to pound the structures. One by one the buildings collapsed and after the last one fell, the flow of attacking mechs from the north of his zone ceased. That opened up a potential strategy of silencing the production structures for each zone, leaving only the ones that targeted the Ssath active, but he was sure the GCA had more than one way to generate its troops to continue the attack. They had mentioned the attacks would be constant and the GCA had the tech to make it happen in any number of ways.

“The way is clear, do you want me to send some scouts out to see what we’re facing?” Tran asked.

“Definitely, just don’t engage with whatever’s in there until we get the rest of the army up to support you,” Hugh said.

As they waited for the scouts to get eyes on their target, Hugh’s main army continued their way north. Nothing moved to stop them as the attack waves continued to focus on his command post. Back at the command post, the destroyers were helping to hold back the naval attack, but they were getting torn apart in the fight, and the constant attacks left no time for drone repairs. Finally, the last destroyer sank below the water, and a pair of attacking frigates parked right off the beach, sending shells into the base. Hugh took control of his missile launcher and fired one missile at each frigate, which remained stationary as they shelled.

Fire from the bunkers protecting the beach also engaged the enemy navy, but they were getting pummeled by the ship’s secondary guns. One bunker collapsed and crushed the section of defensive garrison troops protecting that area, but then the missiles landed, the explosions burning through the thin armor of the ship mechs and leaving them smoldering in the harbor. It was only going to be a brief reprieve as more ships were sailing in from the east and west.

On the ground, things were a bit better. With the millipede eggs liberally spread around the command post, the invaders were thinned out before they reached the range of the defenders. A small army of mechs continued to haul eggs north, depositing them in the path that the attackers would take when they eventually overran the command post. A quick check on the millipede hive revealed that the egg reserves were almost depleted, and the queen had now joined the defenders at the command post.

The Ssath core has engaged the guardian.

Hssim was on the move, and Hugh shifted his view back to the scout entering the volcano. The interior of the volcano had been hollowed out and replaced with a massive arena. His scout was destroyed almost instantly, but the video feed gave them something to work with. Oversized beam projectors had popped up in random locations, one of which destroyed the scout. Further, into the arena, Hugh could see the largest mech he had ever witnessed battling with an army of Ssath units who were pouring into the arena from the opposite side of Hugh’s forces. The mech was a nightmare of a thing. Its bulbous body sat at the center of the arena while dozens of claw-tipped tentacles lashed out at the Ssath. Beams fired from the tentacles and the mechs it didn’t destroy, it snatched up into the air, before feeding them into giant, tooth-lined maws that lined the center of its body.

Incoming fire peppered the guardian, but it appeared to have little effect as a powerful, glowing purple shield deflected all damage. A swarm of infantry mechs clawed and bit at the monster, but the shield was still holding strong. Hugh tried to get a count of the Ssath, but it was hard to do with the chaos of battle. He could see hundreds of infantry engaging the guarding and scores of light and medium mechs. A solid dozen of the huge t-rex heavy mechs were firing at the monster, and more units continued to stream inside the arena with each passing second.

“Should we push into the arena with the forces we have, or wait?” Tran asked.

“I’m perfectly happy letting the Ssath whittle that thing down,” Cartwright said.

Your forces have breached the arena, you must engage the guardian within the next 5 minutes, or your forces will be subject to random orbital bombardment.

“That’s our cue. Head in with what you have, the bulk of the army will follow as fast as we can,” Hugh ordered. It would be a waste of units, but they wouldn’t last long under an orbital bombardment. A timer started counting down from five minutes, telling Hugh that he needed to get a move on.

“Hugh, we may want to try to game this a bit. The prompt said we had to engage the guardian, but it didn’t say that had to be our entire focus. Have our troops tear up the Ssath and just fire an occasional round at that monster, hopefully, it's running on some kind of aggro system and will keep focused mostly on the Ssath until we bring our big guns up,” Maddison suggested.

“If the Ssath do the same, will either of us have enough left to even challenge that monster?” Zacharias asked. Hugh thought about it for a moment. Hssim was a threat, but the guardian had so far proven immune to their attacks. He needed to weaken the guardian and at the same time, thin out the Ssath attack force.

“Move in, keep our distance from the Ssath but use our main battle mechs to reach out and hurt them while the rest of the forces tackle the guardian,” Hugh ordered.

The survivors from the two forward bases numbered several hundred infantry, twenty light mechs, thirty main battle mechs, and forty air mechs. As soon as the first units entered the arena, more of the beam turrets popped up from the floor and began to fry the lead infantry. His troops responded, clearing out the nearest turrets before shifting fire to their primary targets.

Minutes passed and some Ssath forces responded to attack Hugh, but most were frantically attacking the guardian. The main battle mechs tore holes in the Ssath ranks, focusing on the largest of the enemy mechs first. His infantry, light mechs, and air mechs fired on the guardian, but neither their weapons nor those of the Ssath seemed to be making any headway against the monster.

Ssath reinforcements continued to flow into the battle, but Hugh knew that there was an end to Hssim’s forces, just like Hugh’s numbers were limited. His forward base forces were being torn apart by turrets, the guardian, and Hssim’s longer-ranged weapons. By the time Hugh’s main army made it past the forward base and started up the volcano, the numbers of his forward base forces had been cut by half.

“Our weapons aren’t doing anything against the guardian’s shield. I don’t think it’s something we can just burn down eventually,” Tran said.

“Tran’s right, this is a boss battle, there must be some mechanic we’ve missed. Look for something that might be powering the shield, there has to be some way to take it down, the GCA likes to at least pretend to play fair,” Hugh said.

“Uh, Hugh, I might have an idea,” Derek said.

“What do you have? We’re open to any ideas at this point,” Hugh said.

“It might be the turrets, they’re the only interactable things inside the arena. Maybe they’re the power source for the shield,” Derek said.

“Everyone change focus, go for the turrets,” Hugh ordered, willing to take a chance. The turrets were spread all over the arena floor, and they often sunk back into the floor before popping up. Starting at their side of the arena, Hugh’s mechs worked counterclockwise, destroying turrets as they went while ignoring both the Ssath and the guardian, both of which continued to inflict casualties on Hugh’s troops.

“I think it’s working, the shield has changed hue,” Maddison noted. She was right. The purple shield had shifted to a bluer color and as more turrets were taken out, the color changed even further to green.

Your command post has fallen.

The command post was lost and now, only the forward base stood between Hugh’s army and the unlimited tide of attackers. He needed to finish this before they were swamped by the AI-controlled wave of mechs. A massive force of enemies had built up around the command post and leading them were a pair of destroyers walking slowly over the beach as their main guns continued to blast the last of the surviving garrison troops. Their new target was Hugh’s avatar.

Oddly enough, there appeared to be a glitch in the way the automated forces attacked. Hugh had figured they would charge directly for his avatar as soon as they were produced at the production facilities ringing the volcano. Instead, they continued the long march to the shore before moving to Hugh’s starting zone and then pushing north through his command post on their way to Hugh.

The automated wave pathing would give him a little breathing room, but not much. It also brought up the question of whether the programming was intentional or a symptom of the GCA’s systems starting to fail. Given that it hadn’t been used in an untold number of centuries, the membership battle to join the GCA had likely been low on the priority list for maintenance updates.

“We’re coming in, keep at those turrets everyone,” Hugh ordered as he ran his avatar up the ramp and into the arena along with the rest of the army. His forward base forces were down to just a few mechs, but with the bulk of the army arriving, the turrets on their side of the arena were snuffed out quickly. Hssim must have seen what they were doing and began to follow suit. The shield around the guardian shifted from green to yellow, then to orange as the turrets were smashed apart.

“Woah, the Ssath have annihilators, lots of them,” one of the soldiers noted as the most powerful mechs in the Ssath arsenal entered the battle. In the fight for Earth, the annihilators were almost impossible to take down and had the firepower to turn the tide of battle in Hssim’s favor. Hugh counted eight of the annihilators with a ninth hiding in the back that looked a bit different from the others.

A final rush of infantry and light mechs followed on the heels of the annihilators but then the flow of units stopped. The last ground units to enter turned and fired back the way they had come, a few of the annihilators following suit. A swarm of Ssath air mechs flowed into the arena after the ground units were all inside. Like giant flying dinosaurs, the Ssath air mechs lashed out with cannons and beam weapons. A dozen larger air mechs served the role of bomber, dropping strings of bombs across the guardian's shield before flying past it and engaging Hugh’s forces.

There weren’t any additional Ssath entering the arena now, the force Hugh faced represented all that Hssim could bring to the party.  The AI-controlled units must have rolled over Hssim’s base faster than Hugh’s. The Ssath didn’t have the benefit of gamers helping with his garrison forces.

“I think we have Hssim’s avatar located,” Hugh noted, highlighting the unusual annihilator for the rest of his officers. It was the same size as the other annihilators, but it moved with fluid grace, not the big stompy movements of the other mechs. More guns covered the avatar mech and its rate of fire was much higher than the other annihilators.

“They may have annihilators, but we have a battleship,” Nix said as his mech entered the arena, sixteen-inch guns swiveling to target the guardian.