War Core 3, Chapter 42.

Chapter 42.

“They’re splitting their forces,” Tran said. Everyone turned their attention to space where the Ssath fleet separated into two equal groups, one heading toward Earth directly while the other took on the station orbiting the. The moon base had the fleet from the Jupiter stations supporting it, as well as a few dozen minelayers that were now pressed into service as gunboats. Added to that were the formidable defenses of the station itself, which had the most time of any station so far to build up. With the station’s fighters and those from the carriers of the fleet, the humans could field an impressive strike against the split Ssath fleet that lacked any fighter cover of their own.

Both halves of the Ssath fleet were timed to reach their objectives at the same time. Unlike the moon station, the one orbiting Earth had a much smaller fleet covering it, only the ships it was able to produce as well as around five hundred fighters. It turned out that a good chunk of the station’s resources had been pumped into producing mines for the minelayers that had joined them. A solid wall of mines encircled Earth, with many of them being the newest tier mines with enhanced stealth capabilities. Without a fighter force to sniff out the minefields, the Ssath were going to pay a heavy price to approach the orbitals.

Confirmation that the moon station’s victory point had been added to the human totals spurred the Ssath groups to increase their pace, ignoring the potential damage from the minefields that were surely in their path. It shouldn’t be much longer before the station orbiting earth also joined the victory point total for humanity, but Hugh wasn’t exactly sure how the two ground-based stations on each pole would fare, and he wasn’t exactly sure how they would fight a fleet in orbit.

Your command post has reached tier 6.

Hugh had lost track of time since the last upgrade, busy with organizing the defense and purchasing the last of the improvements to his forces. Now that he had reached the next tier, resources were starting to become a problem. All the salvage had been gathered and while the victory points and the command post itself were producing resources at a decent pace, it wasn’t enough to support both unit production and further upgrades.

Upgrades would be nice but given that the battle in space was coming to a close, Hugh decided he would be better off with every unit he could produce. It would be a waste to drop resources into unlocking an upgrade, only to find he had no time to install them in the units already fielded. As it stood, it would take some time for his construction drones to make the rounds and refit every mech to the tier six standard. Even without spending resources, the tier jump improved his units.

His main battle mechs added a light shield generator, giving them some extra protection while his assault infantry unlocked automated grenade launchers. Now his infantry could hurl grenades from the shoulder-based launcher much further than they could throw them, all while maintaining accurate fire with their twin assault rifles. His light mechs just had a slight speed and armor upgrade, nothing too exciting but a good incremental improvement. The command post gained a shield generator as well, but given that was described as a light unit, it was unlikely to stand up to much punishment. At tier six, additional armor plating was integrated into the command post, and the drones assigned there began their work.

Without any salvage to gather, most of Hugh’s drones were tasked with upgrades to the units already in the field. Newly produced mechs would have the upgrades already baked in, but it was a somewhat time-consuming task to upgrade the existing units when the battlefield was as large as this one was. Unless the space battle took a bad turn for the worse, they should finish up in time. Already, the AI-controlled construction drones at each victory point were going about their tier six upgrades, but until they were done with their work, Hugh had no idea what he would get for each location.

Back in space, for the first time, the Ssath started to take serious losses among their heavy starships as the fighter wave from the moon base pressed their attack, absorbing more losses to get to the valuable targets. With the increased speed and closing rate of the Ssath fleet, the fighters wouldn’t have time to rearm for a second strike so they did what those defending Jupiter had done, and turned their fighters into a final weapon after having expended all their anti-ship missiles. Over a thousand of the missiles that launched from the fighters hit home, and then several scores of fighters slammed into the enemy battleships in an attempt to stem their advance. Hugh could only hope those pilots operating the starfighters wouldn’t face enhanced lethality at the end of the battle due to their sacrifice.

Even with half their fleet attacking the earth station, those ships targeting the moon station vastly outnumbered the human fleet. Still, with the support of the weapons on the station, the two sides were trading losses with each other at about an equal rate. The loss rate shifted when the Ssath ships finally made it into gun range and were able to pummel the station which had limited maneuverability. The battle raged for nearly an hour, but the results were inevitable, the Ssath destroyed the human fleet and the moon station, but they had done it too late to secure the station’s conquest point and suffered horrible losses to accomplish their task.

The station orbiting earth didn’t last nearly as long as the moon station had, with only a small flotilla of ships to support it, they did what damage they could. Mines did more damage than the station or its fleet, claiming dozens of enemy ships as they closed into gun range. Back on the ground, Hugh could see possible enemy drop pod locations drop off his view one by one as the Ssath fleet absorbed more and more losses. With nothing to stop it but the minefield, the Ssath began to enter Earth’s orbit. Leading the way with the remaining frigates, the Ssath started to fire beam weapons at each of the stations guarding the poles. Return fire in the form of a massive missile swarm launched from the surface, each station sending two thousand of the weapons toward the enemy in orbit.

Hugh shifted his view to the ground-based stations and could see several areas littered with disposable launch ramps. There wouldn’t be a second missile strike from these stations, but the one they had launched was powerful. In addition to the missile volley, several ground-based laser stations revealed themselves, pumping beams of energy into the orbiting ships. With their vast power supplies protected deep underground, the stations on earth were able to produce much more powerful weapons than those mounted on ships, where space was at a premium.

The frigates opened up on the incoming missiles with their point defense, but it seemed that the atmosphere degraded their systems to some extent and the hit rate was lower than usual. With less than two hundred frigates remaining, the wall of point defense fire the Ssath fleet had once enjoyed was gone. The ground-based lasers also started to pluck frigates out of orbit, and the teams controlling the stations worked together to focus several beams on the same ships to kill them quickly.

Not everything was going the humans’ way, though, and incoming fire began to take out the laser stations. It looked to Hugh like the ground-based laser stations were heavily armored, and even had a shield projector to help them survive longer, but they had no way to hide, and it was easy for Ssath to target them. Only a few of the laser stations were still operational when the missile volley arrived in orbit. Hundreds of missiles were shot down by a final flurry of point defense fire, but there were just too many, and it wasn’t long before Earth’s orbitals were cleared and the last Ssath frigate was destroyed.

Undeterred, the Ssath sent their destroyers in next, still reluctant to commit their heavier warships until the surface threat was eliminated. Without a way to build new launchers in the short time they had, the ground stations did what they could with their remaining laser batteries, dropping several destroyers before the enemy finally blasted out the last of the defenders’ weapons. Lasers from the enemy ships lanced into the fortified bunker that represented the core of the ground stations. Before long, the stations fell silent, their weapons and command posts seemingly destroyed. Whatever conditions were needed to secure the points for the ground-based stations weren’t revealed, and though both command posts were smoldering ruins, neither humanity nor the Ssath had claimed victory for them. The Ssath rapid advance had managed to claim the victory point for the station orbiting the earth.

Conquest Points.

Humanity: 7/131.

Ssath: 15/131.

“They didn't do too bad, but it’s up to us now,” Hugh told his command team. The Ssath fleet was a fraction of its original size, and the losses that the brave humans defending earth’s space had inflicted gave the cores on the ground a chance to win this. Projected landing points circled each of Hugh’s ten victory points, while a few clusters were still scattered around the city.

“Sir, I’d like to move our mobile reaction teams to cover the largest of the drop locations inside the city. The victory points can hold out for a while, and if we can ambush the others dropping randomly in the city, we can prevent the Ssath reinforcements and then respond to whichever victory point needs our assistance,” Cartwright said.

“That should work, I have a feeling the enemy not targeting the victory points are the ones that will try to take out the command post before the fight has a chance to get going. Langerson, have your patrol units shadow the drops that Cartwright can’t get to. Don’t engage, just keep an eye on them so we know where they’re headed,” Hugh ordered.

The strange, armored police cars were fast enough to keep ahead of most Ssath units, and despite their aggressive nature, Hugh didn’t think that the Ssath commander would let his units chase after lone police car mechs driving around. Most of the police mechs returned to the station and prepared to help defend it and the command post. The automated factory had gone back to work and was producing reinforcements to supplement the fifty mechs that were already on the ground. Most of the already built AI-controlled mechs had passed through a side door in the factory, receiving the last of their tier six upgrades. For now, the upgraded mechs were content to occupy the bunkers and fortifications placed around the command post.

Each of the victory points was now defended by a full company of infantry, a score of light mechs, and a pair of main battle mechs. A similarly sized force was at the command post, but Hugh ordered it to join Cartwright to help cover the potential drop points. The command post was still producing units and he would use the newly built units to fill out the defenses protecting the command post. Cartwright’s mobile teams each consisted of a platoon of infantry mechs, four light mechs, and sixteen main battle mechs. It was a lot of firepowers and should be able to handle the Ssath units well enough, despite being a tier lower than the enemy mechs.

In space, the Ssath fleet settled into orbit. The ships maneuvered into position, getting ready to launch their landing force at the 107 defending cores. Drop pods began to emerge from the Ssath ships, hurtling their way into the atmosphere. Every ship seemed to carry at least some ground troops, but the battleships and cruisers carried the lion’s share of the Ssath army.

“Get ready, here they come,” Hugh announced.

“Wait, what’s going on out there?” Tran said as drop pods began to explode in the atmosphere. Point defense fire began to pour out of the orbiting Ssath fleet, tearing into the debris that hung all around them in orbit.

“Look like the two ground-based stations aren’t quite out of the fight just yet,” Hugh said as what was attacking the Ssath revealed itself. Heavily stealthed mines were seeded Just outside the atmosphere and as they detected drop pods passing, each mine exploded, generating a powerful beam that easily destroyed any pod it hit. Sadly, like the ground-based station’s missiles, these were one-shot weapons. With the Ssath pounding anything that looked suspicious into scrap, the mines were only going to get a few licks in before they were wiped out.

“Check out the area around each of the stations,” Cartwright said. Hugh looked back at the destroyed bases and watched as hidden aircraft hangers rose from the ground and began to launch fighters. These mechs were similar to Hugh’s air mechs and once airborne, they turned toward the nearest concentrations of drop pods, firing missiles and engaging with guns. They weren’t alone, cores that had invested in air mechs took this as their cue to act and from the various command posts, waves of air mechs began to launch toward the incoming invasion. Between the mines and the swarms of human air mechs, the Ssath first wave of drop pods was being savaged.

“Wow, I think you may have made the right call about air power Hugh,” Tran said as the Ssath fleet in orbit shifted its point defense fire from the minefield toward the fighters. Despite some degradation of their targeting due to atmospheric interference, the point defense lasers killed off the human air mechs in a matter of minutes. It didn’t look like the cores that invested heavily in air mechs got much value out of their resources, since while they did blunt the initial attack, those cores would likely have fewer ground units to deal with the pods that were even now on their final approach.

“Incoming fire, disperse!” Cartwright called out. Heavy beams tore into Hugh’s mobile forces, vaporizing multiple mechs with each hit. Too late, the soldiers piloting the mechs began to separate and try to evade the incoming fire. After about ten seconds, the barrage ceased. A system prompt appeared, advising Hugh of what had just happened.

The Ssath Empire has initiated a series of orbital bombardments of your forces. They have 7 orbital bombardments remaining in this battle. When the rest of the fleet joins those forces already orbiting Earth, additional bombardments may become available. The area around the command post, as well as your victory points, cannot be targeted for bombardment.

A new map overlay appeared in Hugh’s vision showing him the safe areas around each victory point and his command center. Just like with the drop pod restrictions, the area around the command post was much larger than the area around the victory points. Everywhere else on the battlefield was fair game and moving forces to support the various victory points was going to be suicide.

“I should have anticipated this. We knew they had orbital bombardments, but I didn’t realize it would be like this,” Hugh admitted.

“Don’t worry about blame, worry about defending your core. I’m sending everything that’s left of the mobile forces to support the command post. We’re too spread out now to make a tempting target after the losses we just absorbed, so I think it’s a safe move,” Cartwright said.

Cartwright was right, they had the battle to fight, and he needed to get his head back into it. Tallying up what had survived the barrage, Hugh couldn’t help but feel discouraged. He only had a pair of main battle mechs, three light mechs, and a handful of infantry left from the mobile teams. Drop pods slammed into the ground at the predicted points, each disgorging a swarm of enemy mechs. A ring of steel surrounded each victory point as the fight for each began. In the open areas of the city, more drop pods landed, but the forces that were supposed to stop them were already destroyed.

The enemy gathered and charged toward the command post. Was this fight already lost?