War Core 4, Chapter 36.

Chapter 36.

Hugh continued to research upgrades and build his forces as the countdown to the next wave began. It was to be a continuous wave of attacks, and most of the team figured the attack waves would start out slow and ramp up as time passed. They also had to wait at least an hour after the wave started before they could move to challenge whatever the final guardians were. Scouts penetrated into Ssath territory, and there was a running skirmish between his scouts and the Ssath infantry assigned to flush them out. Inside his zone and around the forward bases he controlled, Hugh had his forces out to counter whatever scouts the Ssath had slipped in.

Both sides lost a few infantry mechs, but neither of them would be able to completely eradicate the enemy scouts. For now, it was a worthy expenditure of resources. Hugh lost units at about the same rate as the Ssath and given his advantage in resource gathering, even trading of units favored the human forces. The skirmishing also insured that both sides would have a good idea about what their enemy was up to. This proved itself correct as a Ssath attack force was spotted leaving Hssim’s zone. The scout following the group was intercepted and destroyed, and it would be a few minutes before another would pick them up.

“Any idea how many we’re looking at in that force?” Hugh asked.

“Not sure, we only got a partial look, but it was strong. I’d estimate at least a company of infantry supported by other heavier mechs,” Tran said.

“That’s not enough to push our command post, you think they’re going for one of the forward bases?” Cartwright asked.

“Probably, and given the path they were taking, they’re heading toward the D’kahn base rather than the serpent one. That’s our least developed forward base, what do we want to reinforce them with?” Maddison said.

“The next wave will be here soon, so we can’t send too much. Why don’t we take another platoon of infantry from our command post and have them head over, along with a couple of light mechs and main battle mechs to support them? Zacharias, send half our air mechs when the enemy gets a bit closer,” Hugh ordered. He didn’t want to strip the command post defenses, but the extra firepower he was sending should be enough to hold, or at least buy them time to shift more forces over.

With it just reaching tier three, the D’kahn forward base hadn’t had much time to build up its defensive garrison force. Currently, there were only twelve garrison troops, two of which were a machinegun team. His construction drones had managed to finish up eight turrets to supplement the zone’s defenders, but there hadn’t been time for much of a minefield. Garrison troops built slowly at the forward bases, and  Hugh could only count on a handful of automated reinforcements being built before the Ssath attack force arrived.

The pod-controlled mechs assigned to defend the base would have to do most of the heavy lifting. They had a sizeable force of about eighty infantry, two light, and three medium mechs on site, along with a half dozen air units. The single rocket launcher in the middle of the base rounded out their defenses. More units were being built to bring the forward base’s defenses up to the level of the other two, but it would be some time before the units were constructed and made the long trek to the D’kahn zone. Hugh had kept the bulk of his new mech construction back at the command post to defend it as they got ready for the next wave.

“Kind of odd that Hssim would risk this many troops when he’s about to get hit by the next attack wave,” Maddison said.

“Not too strange, he has to know our resource advantage, and he’s trying to even the odds while we’re distracted. If he can nullify one or more of our forward bases, this becomes a much closer fight,” Nix said.

“True, and we have to remember that Hssim has been around a while. His defeat at the Krixnas invasion did a number on him, but I don’t doubt that he still has a few surprises squirreled away from all the rewards he’d earned over the years,” Hugh said. Hssim had likely used most of his perks and purchased items when he died and faced the first battle pit fight, but was Hugh being too cautious over his old foe? It might be better to become the aggressor early in this final battle.

The final attack wave has begun. This attack wave will not cease until one core has achieved victory, or both are destroyed. Assaults will begin in every zone, not just the ones occupied by the active cores. If an attacking force does not encounter any opposition, they will move to attack the nearest command post.

“Call out whatever you see, people,” Hugh ordered. Some of the earlier attacks had been from rather strange opponents so this endless wave could be just about anything. They were also going to be swamped by the forces attacking each zone. If half of them headed toward Hugh’s side of the battlefield, his bases and even his command post would eventually be overrun with sheer numbers. He could only hope that the initial batch of attackers wasn’t too powerful.

“We’ve got movement on our scanners,” one of the gamers working at Hugh’s forward base announced. So far, it was the only one with the enhanced scanner upgrade from the listening post. As he dialed into the listening post’s sensor network, Hugh could see a wave of twenty infantry class mechs heading toward the base. It wasn’t a large force, and they didn’t know the exact type of infantry mechs they were facing yet, but it was a manageable number.

“Sir I’ve picked up the Ssath attack force, they’re fighting the automated attackers,” one of the scouts called out.

It was the zone between Dalven and Hssim, where an unknown core had started the fight. His scout kept well away from the Ssath, and the jungle obscured a lot of his view, but weapons fire was heard along with the occasional flash of an explosion. The fight ended quickly after just over a minute and Hugh ordered the scout to wait for the Ssath to pass so he could get a count of any casualties they had left behind.

At all three forward bases, Hugh watched as his troops engaged the automated wave of infantry attacking out of the jungle. The mechs weren’t species-specific and were just generic humanoid-shaped bots with a rifle-caliber weapon for one arm and a plasma-infused blade for the other. Almost as soon as they appeared, they were cut down, with Hugh’s forces not taking any losses from the brief skirmish.

“Air contacts now, coming in from the north,” the gamer at Hugh’s forward base added. This time it was a dozen automated air mechs. Like the infantry wave before them, the air mechs were generic saucer-shaped units with a single, rather weak beam weapon. Hugh’s air mechs at each base flew to intercept and he felt confident they would deal with the threat.

“Incoming from the sea as well, Hugh,” Nix reported. On the horizon, they could make out a pair of gunboats approaching.

“That’s not all, look,” Hugh said noticing more ships approaching from the former serpent zone. This wasn’t a pair of raggedy gunboats, it was a small flotilla of nine ships, one of which was a destroyer-sized vessel. They had hugged the coast and avoided detection until they were almost in weapons range.

“I suppose I don’t need to point out those are Ssath ships, do I?” Maddison asked. The largest of the vessels resembled a giant pre-historic ocean dino if the dinosaurs back then happened to mount gun batteries on their backs and what looked like torpedo launchers on their flippers.

“Nix, take on the Ssath, Zacharias, run the rest of the air mechs from the command post after those incoming gunboats, then support Nix,” Hugh ordered.

Nix had his first destroyer and six patrol boats under his command. He moved the patrol boats forward, placing them between the enemy and the more valuable destroyer. Streaks of fire lifted off from the destroyer as it launched its pair of tomahawk missiles at the enemy fleet. In response, the enemy destroyer launched four torpedoes from its flipper launchers. Hugh thought he could recognize the dinosaur that the Ssath reminded him of, but he just couldn’t recall the name.

The torpedoes left a white wake as they cut through the choppy water near shore, but the missiles were much faster and closed the distance between the two small fleets in seconds. Gunfire lashed out from the enemy ships, with their gunboats opening fire with a pair of machineguns and a single 20mm autocannon while the Ssath destroyer joined in with three times the firepower of the smaller gunboats.

One missile exploded in the air harmlessly as the incoming fire hit, but the other managed to avoid destruction and slammed into the nearest enemy target, one of the gunboats, unfortunately. Hugh would have preferred a hit on the destroyer, but Nix had no control over targeting he told them, the missile would home in on the nearest threat. Eight air mechs roared over Nix’s ships as they engaged the Ssath fleet. Zacharias hadn’t needed the entire force to fight off two gunboats so he was already pulling some mechs to attack the biggest threat.

The five-inch guns on Nix’s destroyer opened fire, hurling shells toward the approaching fleet and the rest of the ships began to zig-zag as the range between the two fleets decreased. After a few volley’s one of the five-inch shells hit an enemy gunboat. Not large or heavily armored, the gunboat was obliterated by the single blow and rapidly sunk beneath the choppy sea. The Ssath destroyer now returned fire, but it only had a pair of roughly the same caliber main guns as the human destroyer. While the human ships relied on firepower, Hugh got the feeling they didn’t want to let the Ssath navy get close to their ships given the penchant for close-quarters combat.

The anti-aircraft fire began to target the incoming fighter mechs, all of which held two, 100lb bombs in their bomb racks. They homed in on the greater threat, the Ssath destroyer, spraying the enemy gunboats as they passed them by. One of Nix’s gunboats suddenly exploded as a torpedo reached it. A second vessel was destroyed and then twin explosions wracked Nix’s destroyer as the last pair of torpedoes hit their most important vessel.

“I’m going down, this is embarrassing,” Nix said, disgusted that his flagship had been taken out so early in the fight.

“I think we can handle it from here,” Zacharias said as his fighters arrived over the Ssath destroyer and dropped their payload. One fighter was shot down before it could drop and two more were taken out as they passed just over the tops of the Ssath fleet. Explosion peppered the Ssath destroyer, the pod-controlled pilots not missing their mark. Relatively small, the 100lb bombs did the trick when fourteen of them impacted a single destroyer.

With both destroyers out of the fight, it was easy enough for Hugh’s surviving patrol boats to defeat the less capable gunboats the Ssath fielded. The fight had been costly, though and more gunboats from the continuous wave of attacks appeared on the horizon. Another destroyer had already been under construction at the port facility, but it would still be a while before it was complete. Naval ships, especially the mech versions of them, were expensive and time-consuming to build.

“Sir, the Ssath only lost two infantry, but the air mechs are giving them a bit more trouble,” the scout trailing the Ssath reported. They were getting close to Dalven’s zone and then would cross over into the D’kahn territory. Given their position to the north of the zone, the Ssath intended to take out the forward base. Their force had attracted the attention of the automated air mechs in the zone they were in, but a dozen air mechs weren’t going to stop them. Hugh was a bit surprised the Ssath didn’t bring air mechs of their own, but maybe Hssim wanted to keep them close to his command post to help in the defense.

More attackers emerged from the north of the zone, a continuous stream of weak infantry and air mech units, but their numbers were growing as time passed. By the time the Ssath began to approach Hugh’s forward base, they were under constant pressure and a few light mechs and more advanced air mechs had begun to appear. Hugh was taking losses and despite the reinforcements he had sent, the forward base might not be able to hold up to both the Ssath and the AI units.

The Ssath wasted no time and went right on the attack as soon as they were in range. Mortar shells began to fall onto the forward base as the horde of Ssath infantry charged the trench line. The base rocket launcher and turrets began to fire, the rocket targeting the artillery mechs while the turrets helped the defenders thin out the wave of infantry. Ssath losses were mounting and Hugh’s troops were slaughtering them out in the open. Millipede mines exploded and caused chaos in the Ssath ranks, while his pod-controlled soldiers laid down deadly accurate fire.

The Ssath kept up a strong volume of fire as they approached, their medium mechs targeting Hugh’s counterparts as they engaged in a long-range duel. Human main battle mechs tore apart several of the Ssath units before one of theirs finally succumbed to the Ssath fire. His other main battle mechs were still in the fight, but they were vastly outnumbered and all were showing at least some signs of damage.

Something interesting happened when the first M26 Pershing mech was destroyed. It collapsed to the ground like normal, but then the remains stirred and reformed. After a few seconds, a new mech stood on four legs. It was a hodgepodge of a thing, mounting the surviving undamaged .30 caliber machinegun atop a small platform. The mech walked slowly and unsteadily toward the enemy, machinegun blazing away at the closest hostile mech.

“Is that your Undying Mech ability? It’s kind of cool, but creepy,” Maddison said.

“I think so, but why did it kick in now? This is the first time it happened and I thought from the description it was always supposed to happen,” Hugh asked.

“Hmm, I think this is the first Pershing we’ve had destroyed, isn’t it? All the others were M4’s. Maybe it’s because the M4’s were just the same as your normal medium mechs and the Pershings are kind of the first true main battle mech,” Maddison suggested.

“I’m just glad we get some extra value out of them. What’s really bugging me is why is Hssim attacking like this and with a force the Ssath had no hope of defeating us with. Hssim’s just wasting his forces,” Cartwright asked as the slaughter continued.

“I don’t think it’s a waste, I think Hssim calculated pretty accurately what he needed to destroy the base,” Maddison replied.

“Destroy the forward base? We’re going to hold the Ssath,” Cartwright said with confusion.

“Yeah, we’ll stop the Ssath, but their attack will get into the trench line and do some real damage before they’re all mopped up. After that, it's just a matter of either waiting for the AI units to overrun the place, or letting it become a resource drain as we pump more units to hold it than we gain from the resources we’re extracting,” Maddison said.

She was right, Hugh watched as the surviving Ssath pushed into the trenches and got into melee range. The human mechs fought hard, but this was the Ssath’s playground and the exchange rate went from five to one in favor of the humans to the exact opposite. By the time the last Ssath was brought down, Hugh’s defenders had been cut by half and all the fixed defenses on that side of the base were gone.

Time passed and Hugh’s forces were starting to take more casualties from the larger waves of attacks. When the attackers from the nearby zones without cores started showing up, Hugh’s automated defenses couldn’t keep pace with the losses. The other two forward bases were holding fine, their larger garrisons were supplemented by more of Hugh’s pod-controlled troops. Sure, they were taking losses, but nowhere near the rate that the D’kahn base was enduring.

Hugh did the math. The trickle of resources that the base provided wasn’t enough to warrant the troops he was expending to defend it. There was the debris field full of salvage around the base, but that was getting thin and would be picked over before long. Even if the debris fields were full of resources, Hugh couldn’t send drones out to harvest them, they would be destroyed by the unending attacks. Automated defenders added value to the equation, but they were produced too infrequently to replace the losses the garrison troops were taking. It was going to be better economically to abandon the D’kahn forward base and relocate the surviving troops to the forward base in Hugh’s zone.

“Pull everything we have left out of the D’kahn base, and send them to the one in our zone,” Hugh said reluctantly. It felt like a small defeat and his supposed advantage over Hssim just got a bit smaller.