War Core 3, Chapter 41.

Chapter 41.

Hours passed as the Ssath fleet continued on a course toward Earth. Hugh spent the time working on improving his defenses and building up his forces. The Ssath had taken a beating in its fight with the Jupiter stations, and despite the losses mostly being to their fighters and lighter escort ships, the number of possible landing points projected over Hugh’s battlefield had shrunken considerably. Where before the ground was almost completely covered, now large open patches appeared over the battlefield, mostly in the spaces between the victory points.

When the enemy finally launched their drop pods to begin the attack, Hugh was sure he would get accurate and exact landing points, but for now, they could only guess where the main weight of the attack would fall. A good-sized area around the command post remained clear, the GCA not allowing the Ssath to simply drop directly on his command post for an easy win. In addition, each victory point had a much smaller area cleared around them, also preventing an easy victory by dropping on the heads of the defenders.

His command post reached tier five and work began on further upgrades. His command post could now research minefields and upgraded defensive bunkers. It turned out he could research a version of the defensive bunkers at each victory point. As he had hoped, upgrading each victory point with turrets had granted him a similar upgrade for the command post, saving a few resources that he didn’t need to spend, so Hugh decided to go the same route with the bunkers, upgrading the victory points with the bunkers first so he could get the free upgrade for his command post. When the Ssath were closer to Earth and ready to attack, he may have to rethink things and opt to improve the command post first, but while he had the time, he would save every resource point that he could.

Resources were still enough to fund unit construction and upgrades, but the city had nearly been picked clear of salvage. When the last bits of debris were dragged into the command post for processing, he would have just the static flow of resources that the command post and victory points generated. He would have to make some hard decisions soon, and Hugh estimated that when his command post reached tier six, he would run out of salvage for his drones to gather.

With ample resources, for the time being, Hugh went on an upgrade spree for his units. The infantry mechs were now outfitted with more armor upgrades, a rifle on each arm, and a melee weapon of the pod operator’s choice. His light mechs, the M3’s, had also received an armor upgrade and also mounted a secondary 30-caliber machinegun to supplement the 37mm main gun. The main battle mechs upgraded their main guns from the high velocity 75mm to a more powerful 90mm gun. A coaxial machinegun was mounted next to the main gun, giving the mechs a total of two machineguns on each unit.

The police station was upgraded and added ten officers and a patrol car to the battle. Each police mech traded its pistol for a shotgun as its main weapon. Their patrol cars had the turret-mounted weapon on the roof upgraded to an assault rifle caliber weapon. With improved armor for tier five, the patrol cars were now protected with the equivalent of Hugh’s early T-7 light mech armor. The patrol cars wouldn’t go toe to toe with an actual combat mech, but they could do some damage to, and help suppress the enemy infantry.

Hugh’s steady unit production now left him with nearly a company’s worth of infantry and a platoon of light mechs at each victory point. The four mobile groups each sported a platoon of infantry, a company of medium mechs, and a platoon of light mechs. As the last of the mechs joined their groups, Hugh started to build up a defensive force to protect the command post. For now, he would keep the command post group the same size as one of the four mobile reaction teams. As the battle progressed, he could pull back units to defend the command post as needed.

An anonymous observer has funded an upgrade for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art victory point. Many of the features of this upgrade are hidden until certain conditions are reached during the battle. The upgrades to this victory point will improve as your command post increases its tier.

“Sir, you may want to check out the latest upgrade, any idea how to put these to use?” Captain Cartwright asked. Hugh was already looking over the museum's victory point. His attention was drawn just west of the museum itself to the outer edge of the point, which had now expanded to include Hancock Park and the La Brea Tar Pits. Stepping from the bubbling tar was a huge mech that looked exactly like the skeleton of a wooly mammoth. The mech stepped forward and shook its head, flinging tar everywhere. Glowing red eyes scanned the area around it, and the massive tusks glowed blue with plasma energy.

A second mechanical beast emerged from the tar, this one resembling a Sabre Tooth Tiger. Much smaller than the mammoth that proceeded it, the tiger was no less impressive as it ran a circuit around the park, leaping around like a giant mechanized kitten with oversized plasma-enhanced teeth and claws. A second tiger emerged from the tar and joined the first. After a few minutes, the trio of mechanized pre-historic beasts realized there was no immediate threat and plunged back into the murky tar pit they had emerged from.

“Now that’s not what I expected. If they’re anything like their living counterparts, I think they’ll put up a good fight,” Hugh answered. Several of the infantry mechs covering that location walked over to inspect the beasts before they returned to the tar pit, but the beasts paid them no mind, recognizing the human forces as allies.

“There goes my whole defensive plan, I’ll get work on shifting forces around,” Captain Tran lamented. With the victory point expanding he would have to move troops to cover the tar pit and park area, as well as order new defensive bunkers. The park provided good ground for the main battle mechs to fight on, and the fortified museum attached to the tar pits would give the infantry solid cover.

“Hey, did you notice the protected area around both these sponsored victory points is larger?” Captain Cartwright observed. He was right, and Hugh was a little embarrassed that he hadn’t noticed it first. It wasn’t just the museum, now the Queen Mary complex had a wider area around them clear of any possible enemy drop locations. Maybe that was part of what the mysterious benefactors purchased with their upgrade? Whoever or whatever they were, Hugh was thankful they were helping. The next prompt told him that the human leaders weren’t done with their upgrades either.

A new upgrade has been purchased by the leadership of Earth. Each core will receive a unit of conventional forces to supplement its mechs. These forces will not be replenished as the ground battle commences, so use them wisely.

“Sir, can you hear me?” A voice called out over the general comms channel.

“I can hear you, who is this?” Hugh asked.

“Sir, I’m Major Diaz in command of a detachment from the 1st Battalion 185thArmored Regiment. I’ve got reinforcements on the way as well as some infantry that should be mobilizing near where you are. We’re joining the battle, but I guess we’re not exactly in the same type of gear your other troops are using,” Diaz said.

“I’ve got eyes on them, Hugh, coming in from the north,” Cartwright said. Hugh looked north and spotted a column of armored vehicles approaching. Unlike his mechs, these weren’t giant walking contraptions, these appeared to be actual military vehicles, a column of M1 Abrams tanks, and a battery of self-propelled artillery.

“We’re glad to have you, Major, where exactly did you come from?” Hugh asked.

“My unit is part of the National Guard and like everyone else, we were activated and told to report for combat pod training. Instead of joining the queue to pilot mechs, we were pulled into these things. From what I can tell one of my men is controlling each vehicle, and they are almost exactly like the machines back home except for the guns being these weird plasma weapons and the powerplant not running out of fuel,” Diaz said.

“I’m not sure why you’re not in normal mechs, but welcome to the fight, Major. We’ll need to figure out the best place to use you. Oh, I see your infantry component has arrived as well,” Hugh said, noticing a dozen M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles suddenly appear in Glendale.

“That’s Bravo Company from the 160th infantry regiment. My team is out of Palmdale which is why we probably popped up just north of you. I’ve got overall command of both units, so just let me know where you want us,” Diaz said. Hugh noted that despite being an infantry company, the Bradleys were unoccupied and controlled by a single soldier each.

“Sir, why don’t we park the artillery at the Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood sign, they reach the entire battlefield with the support fire from there,” Cartwright offered.

Captain Diaz and his forces spent some time out of the city practicing with their vehicles, dialing in their weapons, and learning to control them from the combat pods. All of them had basic familiarization training in the combat pods as part of the preparation for this battle, but these vehicles performed a bit differently from the mechs they had trained on. Eventually, Hugh decided to keep the entire force at the observatory and the Hollywood sign, it was good tank ground, and the vehicles could add to the firepower of the defenders there. He pulled the platoon of light mechs from each location and shifted them to help at the freeway interchange victory point where they would be put to good use.

The testing of the new units showed the operators could only use one weapon system at a time and the main guns on the Abrams tanks had a five-second reload delay. In addition, their mobility was much more limited than Hugh’s other mechs, which could traverse rough ground or steep slopes with little trouble. Still, having over two dozen extra vehicles was a great addition to his defense. Having trained soldiers operating them in their combat pods would further improve their effectiveness.

Defenses at all the victory points were beginning to take shape. Most had at least a pair of defensive turrets protecting them and construction for more bunkers was underway. The newly unlocked mines were also going to be very useful, their placement being easy given that Hugh knew exactly where the enemy would attack. Many of the main avenues through the city were also scheduled to be mined, with a marked safe lane for Hugh’s forces to take.

Once the force defending the command post was filled out, Hugh continued to increase the numbers at each victory point. There was a limit to how many forces could effectively defend each area, and after they reached that limit, they would just start to get in each other’s way and create too tempting a target for the enemy. It turned out the maximum would be around a company of infantry and a few platoons of light mechs. His mobile forces and the command post defenders were absorbing all the main battle mechs he could produce, but once they reached a reasonable number, he might look at replacing a platoon of light mechs at each victory location with the much more powerful medium mechs. For now, he would keep them with the mobile units, giving those forces more firepower to punch through any enemy in their path.

The victory points also continued to evolve on their own, the automated drones stationed at each seemed to be pre-programmed by the GCA to adjust and improve each location as it leveled. Some, like the donut shop, were just improved fortifications, but others were a bit more formidable. The airport sported double the number of turrets compared to the other locations, and they seemed to be dual-purpose weapons, able to elevate to a much higher angle to more easily engage airborne threats. Despite each of his mechs mounting some type of air defense capability based on his earlier choice, they were typically low-powered weapons, suitable for light air mechs, not armored drop pods. Hugh could tell the turrets that the construction drones were building had the punch needed to take on the drop pods.

Dodger Stadium had the stands transformed into fighting positions for infantry. To take that victory location would require the Ssath to fight their way through the turrets, bunkers, and light mechs in the parking lot, then face a costly battle rooting out infantry mechs hiding among the oversized and armored stadium seating.  The Lincoln Heights Jail was now a fortress with walls thicker than any of the other locations and lots of firing ports for the troops inside to engage. Should the enemy breach the walls, many of the individual cells inside the jail had been turned into fortified strongpoints, protected by that location’s automated turrets.

Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood sign on Mount Lee didn’t have as many fortifications and instead relied on the steep terrain to hamper any attack. The Dominguez Gap and Randy’s Donuts seemed equally difficult to defend, with standard bunkers for Hugh’s infantry to fight from and a few automated turrets in support. Other than the reward turrets that Hugh had placed to defend his command post, the ones being produced at each defensive point only featured a heavy machinegun, but their firepower would likely improve as the tier of his command post increased.

Killing the enemy before they landed was the best option, and the fight heating up out in space would soon determine if Hugh was overwhelmed by waves of enemy troops or if humanity stood a chance at victory.