War Core 3, Chapter 45.

Chapter 45.

Hugh was blind to everything around him as the counter ticked down. Every moment, Hugh expected to feel the burning pain of Ssath tearing into his command post, but other than a few pinpricks of discomfort, nothing happened. When the timer reached zero, Hugh reconnected to his command post and focused on the battle going on around him.

“Good to have you back, Hugh, I think we’ll stop them here,” Tran said.

“Thanks, I didn’t think we would make it,” Hugh said, noting the fighting was still fierce, but the Ssath numbers had been thinned enough that the surviving bunkers were holding them off. A single main battle mech walked from the factory and added its fire to the mix, crushing the nearest concentrations of Ssath before the soldier operating it moved to support the bunkers under the most pressure.

“That avatar thing you were in was pure murder on the Ssath. If we had a few more of those, this fight would already be won,” Tran said. Hugh knew that he was dropping targets like crazy while inside the avatar, but the whole time his vision had been focused on the fight at hand, and he couldn’t exactly stop and review the damage he had done. Out by the first bunker that he had fought at, a pile of destroyed Ssath mechs led from the clearing, all the way to the bunker. The last few destroyed mechs had been stopped twenty yards in front of the bunker where the soldiers inside had finished the group off.

Around the bunker that he had made his stand inside, the piles were almost covering the entire bunker, many wrecks were scattered around in smaller piles where the Ssath had dragged them clear to get their chance to join the attack. One of Hugh’s light mechs was crashed nearby, where it and a newly produced infantry mech had helped fight off the Ssath after Hugh’s avatar had been destroyed. The pair of soldiers inside the bunker had been taken out, but they had held the Ssath off long enough for the reinforcements to arrive.

It appeared that most of the incoming Ssath had focused on the bunker his avatar was in, reducing pressure on the rest of the line to the point that Tran had organized a counterattack, pulling half the surviving infantry from the bunkers along with any newly produced mechs. They were joined by the bulk of the police force who had sallied out from their headquarters to work with Tran’s troops. The fight was ongoing, but the Ssath numbers had been gutted by the avatar’s firepower, and each minute the past meant Hugh could produce another mech to join the defenders, while the Ssath only had what they had brought in their drop pods.

With the immediate threat dealt with, Hugh took stock of the victory points, all of which were under heavy assault. Unlike his command post, each victory point was well defended, but they were also facing more Ssath infantry than Hugh had faced, infantry that was fearless in their attacks. One victory point had already fallen, the Dominguez Gap Wetlands area had been swarmed over by the Ssath assault. Hugh could see that they had gone down fighting, given the piles of blasted mechs surrounding each bunker. When focusing on the point, Hugh got a system prompt.

You have lost control of the Dominguez Gap Wetlands Victory Point. This loss will reduce your resource flow for the remainder of the battle. By taking the victory point, all damaged Ssath units in the area are automatically repaired to full operational status. Additional drop pod capacity has been granted for the next wave of Ssath invaders.

“Take a look at this, it seems like this was only the first wave,” Hugh said, sending the latest prompt to his commanders.

“I was a little surprised we only faced infantry, so I would suspect the further drops might bring out the enemy’s heavy guns,” Tran said.

“We have to defeat the ones already on the ground, worry about the next drop when it happens. For now, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Cartwright said.

“Roger that, is there any way we can support the other victory points?” Hugh asked, scanning the others to see who was in danger of being overrun.

“Artillery is already on it, and I wouldn’t suggest sending any additional troops out to reinforce the other points until we have a solid defense rebuilt here,” Tran said. Their forces at the command post were gutted, and it would take some time to recover them. If another point fell, the resource flow would reduce to the point that there would be a delay in between units being produced, slowing his reinforcements.

“I agree with rebuilding our defenses here, once we do, send out the reinforcements individually, we don’t want to make any juicy targets for orbital bombardments,” Hugh decided before continuing his review of the other victory points. Randy’s Donuts was about to go down as well, the Ssath were in among the bunkers and were also being reinforced by the survivors from the Dominguez Gap force. The airport had done well, the additional turrets placed there had targeted and destroyed several drop pods before they could land. Inside their bunkers and with the additional turrets supporting them, the defenders had fought off the surviving Ssath with little difficulty and only a few casualties.

The Queen Mary was in a similar situation to the airport. Hugh’s unknown benefactor had paid for extensive upgrades, and with the firepower on the ship itself, they had easily defeated the invading force, taking only a few losses in the exchange. The freeway interchange to the west was holding out, but the fight was a grind, and losses were high. Occasional artillery barrages struck any heavy concentrations of Ssath, and Hugh figured they would win this one.

Dodger Stadium and the Lincoln Heights Jail were also secure, the forces defending the points had taken heavy losses, but they also enjoyed some artillery support to help turn the tide. With the National Guard units reinforcing them, the Hollywood Sign area and the Griffith Observatory were in good shape. The final point, the LA museum was doing well, the outer bunkers had been overrun, but the Ssath were now trying to deal with the mammoth mech and a trio of saber tooth tiger mechs that had joined the fight when the enemy closed in on the tar pits. Lacking any heavy mechs of their own, the Ssath infantry weren’t doing too well against the mechanized versions of pre-historic beasts, especially when those beasts were supported by the other defenders.

You have lost control of Randy’s Donuts Victory Point. This loss will reduce your resource flow for the remainder of the battle. By taking the victory point, all damaged Ssath units in the area are automatically repaired to full operational status. Additional drop pod capacity has been granted for the next wave of Ssath invaders.

“I hope the real shop back on Earth is okay, I loved those donuts,” Cartwright lamented.

Randy’s had fallen, and the force there, reinforced by the survivors from the wetlands were on their way to support the attack on the freeway interchange. Hugh assigned that victory point priority of fire from the National Guard artillery units, but the Ssath were playing it smart, using the abandoned structures to help cover their advance, and spreading out to reduce their losses as they traveled to their next target. A quick check on the overall campaign showed that humanity had already lost a few of the fights, but the two stations on the poles had done enough damage to give the humans a couple of wins. Hugh pushed the data out to his commanders.

Conquest Points.

Humanity: 9/131.

Ssath: 23/131.

“We’re losing ground,” Tran said. Hugh could hear the worry in his voice.

“Don’t take too much from it just yet. The Ssath aren’t done launching their attack, so we won’t be able to see any human wins until the final enemy drops are on the ground for us to beat. I think there are probably just as many cores out there who handily defeated the first wave and are ready and waiting to do the same thing to the next one. The ones that went down early were probably cores with a compromised plan, maybe the ones that spent a lot on air mechs,” Hugh said.

“True, at least the air mechs seemed to help all of us out a bit by thinning the enemy’s first wave,” Cartwright said.

“There’s nothing we can do about the other cores, the only thing we can do is work on the best defense we can manage,” Hugh said. The fight against the first wave continued, with the freeway interchange finally falling to the combined Ssath forces. The enemy survivors were few in number and they made a futile strike against the Lincoln Heights Jail before being wiped out. Hugh had lost three victory points, but given the amount of salvage laying about, he would be able to produce at full capacity for some time.

His resource-gathering upgrade which had been so lackluster in the past finally proved its effectiveness. It was pulling fallen mechs in for reprocessing automatically and lessening the load on his beleaguered construction drones, who were split between effecting repairs in the field and gathering the salvage so they could continue production. The upgrade only worked on his mechs, so the process of gathering up the Ssath losses would still take a while.

The enemy’s first wave has been repulsed. Upgrades have been granted to your forces. Some cores are still defending against the first wave, and once the last core’s fight has been resolved, the second wave of enemy troops will drop.

Hugh’s defenders at each victory point had been badly depleted, and the production rate of his command post wasn’t fast enough to bring them up to strength anytime soon. To make matters worse, Hugh wasn’t sure how large the second wave would be, but he was willing to bet it would be larger than the first one, given that he lost three victory points, and would contain heavier mechs. The automated construction drones at each victory point were working to repair damaged bunkers and replace destroyed turrets, which would help, but he needed more boots on the ground to hold off the next attack.

“We need to make some changes. I don’t think our production is going to replace our losses before the next attack. As it stands, each victory point is depleted of defenders, and we might lose all of them in the next attack. We need to abandon a few of the points and send those troops to reinforce the ones that we have the best chance of holding,” Hugh said.

“I hate to do it, but it seems like the best plan. At least we still get the resource flow from those points until they’re captured. The question is, how many do we abandon and where do we try to defend?” Tran asked.

“I think first off, we move the National Guard units from the Hollywood sign and shift them to Griffith Observatory. We’ll send the regular mechs from there to reinforce the stadium and Jail. I also want to bolster the defenses at the Queen Mary and the Museum. Both of those have alien benefactors helping to fund them, and we don’t want them to fall too early in case the benefactors decide to throw more resources into the fight. So, we’ll abandon the airport and split the troops there sending half to the Museum and the other half to the Queen Mary,” Hugh decided.

“Good enough, I’ll work out getting everyone moved. It will take some time, we can only send them over in small groups or risk another bombardment disaster,” Cartwright said.

After shifting forces, it was apparent that the victory points were still undermanned. In the end, Hugh decided to also abandon Dodger Stadium, dividing up the defenders there and sending them to the remaining four victory points. Now, each location had a company of infantry, a platoon of four light mechs, and a full platoon of medium mechs. The Griffith Observatory also housed the National Guard units giving additional protection to the artillery battery. In their current position, the artillery could now support every victory point and the command post. The only exception was the Queen Mary which was just out of range.

The GCA had come through with the promised upgrades, giving his infantry a small shield projector on one arm that generated a small round shield that could be angled however the soldier wanted. It was a nice bit of additional protection, and his men were already trying it out, holding their arms so they blocked most of the firing port in a bunker, leaving open only a small portion of the firing port that their weapons were actively using to fire through. His light mechs got a stealth feature that let them blend in better with the terrain and lowered the hit chance of any enemy targeting them. His main battle mechs were given reactive armor, small panels that would blow out to create a cloud of interference that dissipated energy. They could also be remotely triggered to blast Ssath infantry off the vehicles, which would be a huge help if the second wave consisted of as many infantry as the first.

Keeping an eye on space, Hugh wasn’t surprised when the ships in orbit began to disgorge more drop pods. This time, there was no wave of fighters to intercept them, those had all been shot down in the first wave. The mines in space were also mostly expended, only a few responded to engage the enemy pods. Once Hugh got an accurate count of the pods heading toward his area, it looked like this wave was larger than the first. Thirty-five drop pods sailed toward each of the remaining victory points, and a full forty were scattered around the command post. This wave might well decide the outcome of the battle.