War Core 4, Chapter 21.

Chapter 21.

More and more of the monster mech emerged from the sea as it approached the beach. Its body looked similar to a seal if a seal had a maw filled with teeth for a head and a score of giant tentacles that fired beams of energy. The rows of teeth constantly moved around inside the mouth, and any mech that it bit would be torn up like it was in a giant garbage disposal. Its body looked heavily armored and Hugh couldn’t see any obvious weak spots on the mech. The metal alloy it was built from was tinted green and blue to match the sea, though given its bulk, Hugh didn’t think that camouflage was its strong suit.

Unlike the fish men earlier, the Kraken was ungainly on land, and it moved slowly by pulling itself with the flippers. Hugh was fine with its slow pace, as every second it gave him was more time to build up his forces. The garrison mechs were responding, clustering at the south wall which was still damaged from the fish men they had just fought off. A pair of air mechs were still in the fight and both of those began to attack the approaching Kraken.

The Kraken whipped its tentacles in a fury as the fighters dove in with guns blazing. Beams flashed in all directions, but none managed to hit the fighters. A second, then a third gun pass was made before one of the air mechs was finally hit by a random shot. The surviving fighter kept up the pressure, and while the damage it was dealing was negligible, the Kraken had slowed its advance to try and deal with the air attack.

In his earlier campaigns, Hugh had usually been able to accomplish what he wanted with mostly ground forces. With such a powerful enemy vulnerable to a single type of mech, he was going to have to make sure his force composition was more well-rounded and not too specialized. Sea, air, and land were going to have to be built and upgraded. It would be a bigger drain on his resources, but it was going to be necessary this time.

With a boom, the 75mm gun on the main battle mech went into action. The shell connected with one of the flailing tentacles, blasting it from the Kraken. Fifty caliber rounds from the air mech had melted into the armor but hadn’t penetrated yet, but with the main battle mech in the fight, it was good to see that Hugh had some firepower that could put a hurt on that monster. A quick check revealed that might not be his only option to reach and hurt the Kraken. His missile launcher had finally replaced one of the missiles he had expended earlier.

Given the Kraken’s slow pace, Hugh had little trouble calculating the aim point for the missile. With a whoosh, the missile left the launcher and flew toward the Kraken. It seemed to notice and the firing rate of its tentacle beams increased. Hugh got lucky and none of the beams connected with the incoming missile. A huge ball of blue plasma erupted when the missile struck the body of the Kraken. Limbs were burned off and the mouth with its constantly grinding teeth was turned to slag.

When the smoke cleared, the Kraken was in a pitiful state. Only two flippers still worked and its pace slowed to a crawl. Of the twenty tentacle weapons the monster possessed, only four were still in action. As they watched, one of the beams hit a friendly tentacle and burned it off. The Kraken was firing blind as whatever sensors it had relied on to target Hugh’s troops were destroyed in the missile blast.

“Move out and bring that thing down. It’s partially blind and barely moving, but it could do serious damage if we let it blunder into the command post,” Hugh ordered. Given its size, the monster mech could crush the command post just by falling over on it. The infantry charged forward, weapons firing at their maximum rate as soon as they were in range. A few, the newest built units, had grenades and they used them as soon as they could be sure of a hit. Explosions blossomed across the Kraken’s body as cannon, machinegun, and rifle fire began to tear it apart.

A 75mm gun round to a flipper ended the Kraken’s ability to move. After that, the infantry used their weapons to silence the remaining tentacle beams. It was heavily armored, but that was being burned away at a rapid pace. With the Kraken immobile and unable to fight, it was just a matter of time before the GCA called the fight.

Congratulations! You were the first core to defeat the Kraken. Have your construction drones harvest the mech to receive a special upgrade.

The other cores apparently didn’t have missile launchers in their arsenal. It was supposed to be compensation for starting the fight later, and Hugh didn’t feel so bad about being late to the party now. Twenty of his drones were sent to harvest all the salvage on the enormous mech. It would fuel his production for some time, and to make it even better, it was relatively close to the command post so the travel time hauling the salvage back and forth would be short. The other drones were tasked with repairing any damaged mechs, replenishing grenades for the infantry, and rebuilding the wall.

“The immediate threat’s over, how long until the other cores attack?” Cartwright asked.

“Who knows, for now, we’ll concentrate on building up our forces and getting some upgrades made,” Hugh replied.

A quick check revealed that he had just over five hundred resources on hand. The amount was constantly depleted as new unit production continued, but with twenty drones focused on gathering up the remains of the Kraken, the resource count started to increase again. Hugh was still missing two key structures, the airfield, and the port facility. Both the airfield and the port facility required three hundred resources to get started.

Opting to get his airfield underway first, Hugh had five mechs begin construction. With the new buildings being added, they needed more room. The five drones working on repairing the wall began to instead demolish the rest of the southern wall to make room for where the airfield was going in. They would have to rebuild a longer wall once they cleared out the area.

Before he started on the port, Hugh wanted to make sure the airfield also had a control tower that unlocked upgrades for his mechs. The light mech factory also needed an addon structure, the machine shop. Hugh’s main battle mech factory needed a foundry to do the same. These upgrade buildings each cost a hundred resource points, which was going to hurt, but he needed his units to be as capable as possible. At least his free barracks already had the armory attachment added to it at the time of construction.

He still felt the loss of his previous air mech commander, Tremaine, but Captain Zacharias had proven a competent replacement and was fitting in well with the rest of the team. As soon as the first air mech was built he should be on hand to help advise Hugh. They needed solid air cover to deal with any other threats like the Kraken, but ground forces would remain the bulk of his army.

The construction of the airfield along with unit production was taking all his resources, but once they were done, he would have to see about purchasing some unit upgrades and then increase his command post tier. Hugh wanted to keep pace with the other cores, but so far, he had only seen the forces of one opponent, and from what he could tell, that core wasn’t more than a tier or so higher than Hugh.

While they waited for the airfield, Tran put out more scouts. Hugh felt they would soon have enough troops to tackle the cave with the automated creeps they had found right before the other core had attacked. There had to be some kind of reward or resource bonus for clearing it and he didn’t want some other core sneaking in and taking it from him. Three weren’t enough resources for it yet, but Hugh couldn’t resist looking over the upgrades that were currently available.

Upgrade Options.

Command Post, tier 4:

Fortifications:

1. Fortifications, tier 2. Your drones can now create improved trenchwork defenses for your infantry mechs. This tier of fortification allows for some overhead protection from indirect fire and the option to expand sections of the trench to provide hull-down firing positions for light mechs. This upgrade requires 100 resources to activate.

2. Fortifications, tier 3. At this tier, hardened bunkers will be built at critical points along the trench line and the trenches themselves are reinforced to withstand additional punishment. This upgrade requires tier 2 fortifications and 200 resources to unlock.

3. Fortifications, tier 4. At this tier, the bunkers are improved with magnetic accelerators, giving all weapons fired from inside the bunker a slight boost to range and damage. An indirect fire detection system will be installed along the entire trench line, giving the core warning of incoming fire. This upgrade requires tier 3 fortifications and 300 resources to unlock.

Automated defenses:

1. Minefield. Upgrades your construction drones with the ability to produce simple contact mines. This upgrade requires 25 resources to activate and 1 resource is required for every five mines that are planted.

2. Auto turret, level 1. This upgrade unlocks the ability for your drones to construct defensive turrets inside your command post area, as well as any critical locations you control. At this level, the automated turret is lightly armored and houses a .30 caliber machinegun. This upgrade requires 25 resources to activate and the construction of each turret requires an additional 25 resources. Once built, the turrets can be repaired without any additional resource cost.

He would need to build everything. With limited resources available, having a strong defensive position would be a force multiplier. All other things being equal, his troops taking cover inside the fortifications and supported by automated weapons and mines would allow Hugh to outvalue any enemy that dared to attack. This might not be a quick campaign and if he wanted to play the long game, Hugh needed to plan to maximize the value he got out of every single resource point. Eventually, the cores would exhaust all available resources and the only thing left would be the small trickle that each command post produced naturally.

Armory Upgrades:

Barracks, tier 4.

All available upgrades are currently active.

That was right, Hugh’s level-up perk granted all tier-one upgrades for free, and by selecting assault infantry as his specialization, many of the other upgrades, like the heavy barrels for their rifles, were granted as part of the specialization. At higher tiers some other things might appear, so he’d have to keep checking.

“Hugh, have you thought about our force composition yet?” Tran asked. It was a good question. For now, he had to produce everything he could, but eventually, he’d have to come up with a limit for the numbers for each type of mech if he didn’t want to run dry on resources and find himself with an imbalanced build.

“We’ll tweak it as needed for ships and air mechs, but for now, why don’t we hold a company of infantry and twenty each of light mechs and main battle mechs,” Hugh said.

“Can I make one suggestion?” Cartwright asked.

“Sure, I need all the advice I can get for this battle,” Hugh replied.

“Since we’re going to be resource blocked at some point, I think we can focus more on main battle mechs than light mechs. A few for scouting duties and to quickly reinforce an area is fine. I’d rather have an extra platoon of main battle mechs than two platoons of light mechs, especially once we get cooking on the upgrades,” Cartwright offered.

“Good call, let’s go with thirty main battle mechs and hold at ten light mechs for now,” Once the airfield is online we’ll build ten air mechs to start with. After we hit these production goals, we’ll work on upgrades and then boost the command post tier,” Hugh decided.

The next wave of attacks will begin in 45 minutes.

Time was ticking, but Hugh felt good this time. His forces were growing and he should be able to fully explore his territory before the next wave of attacks. The hostile core to the east likely needed time to rebuild after the losses Hugh inflicted and whatever losses they took from the attack wave. He needed to get some eyes out west to see who that core was and what they were up to.