War Core Wednesday! War Core 3, Chapter 37.

Chapter 37.

While Hugh had been working on his defenses, the first waves of missiles in the space battle hit. The human navy was no more and only eight of the defensive stations remained in the fight. Hundreds of Ssath warships drifted dead in space, but they had the numbers to absorb the losses and the human force did not. Another wave of missiles from the Ssath fleet arrived and two more stations were covered in hits, their heavily armored structures breaking apart under the punishment they were receiving.

The human counterattacking volleys became ragged, as stations were taken offline and missile tubes were damaged. They still scored hits, but instead of knocking down swaths of the attacking fleet, they were picking off stragglers. About the only place that Hugh could see they were winning was in the dogfight among the fighters. The human stations had directed many of their defensive missiles away from the incoming Ssath volleys and had instead targeted the swarms of fighters leading the assault. Unlike the woefully small number of capital ships they possessed, the humans had thousands of fighters, and they were tearing into the Ssath formations.

Like the earlier fight with the four stations guarding the edge of the system, the human fighters were initially very successful, killing the enemy fighters at two or even three to one. Once their defensive missiles ran out, the fight became even and despite the skill of the pilots in their combat pods, the Ssath numbers and the higher tier of their fighters began to turn the tide. By the time the last of the asteroid field stations were destroyed and the remaining human fighters had been hunted down, hours had passed. While the losses to the Ssath fleet were fairly insignificant, their fighter squadrons had been torn to pieces. Hugh scanned the enemy fleet before the last station fell, getting a good idea of what they had left before they vanished from the last human sensors in the area.

Ssath order of battle.

Frigates: 2098.

Destroyers: 2116.

Cruisers: 917.

Battleships: 809.

Starfighters: 1621.

Without a base or any way to replace their losses, the Ssath were going to be vulnerable to the swarms of fighters that the stations near Jupiter were pumping out by the minute. Enough time had passed during the space battle for Hugh to reach tier three for his command post. With this latest tier, his unit production speed had improved, and already, the drones were going around to the existing mechs, bringing them up to the new standard. Additional resources had also been found by the police patrols and with new construction drones coming off the line after reaching tier three, Hugh was going to have enough to begin upgrades across the board.

All his victory points now had finished their Clear Fields of Fire upgrades, and when the last one had been completed, the block of buildings around his command post collapsed in on themselves, the debris slowly dissolving into the ground. The GCA had come through on their promise to upgrade his command post with whatever upgrades he had completed on all his victory points. He needed to complete the tier one Internal Fortification on all the points so he could not only upgrade his command post but also unlock the next tier of victory point upgrades. Before he did that, Hugh wanted to make sure he had fully upgraded his units, they were going to be the key to victory, and the more powerful they were, the more of his soldiers he could save.

Hugh reviewed what becoming tier three had unlocked for his army.

Command Post. Tier 3.

Upgrade Options.

1. Fixed defenses. The tier 3 upgrade to fixed defenses improves the simple trench line with solid walls made from advanced materials as well as firing steps for the infantry inside. Bunkers with improved protection will be constructed every 100 yards and a thin line of contact mines will be installed along the entire trench line. The cost to unlock this upgrade is 200 resources.

Light Mech Upgrade Options.

1. Enhanced Armor. This upgrade places additional armor reinforcements on your light mechs, providing limited protection for critical areas. Survivability is increased by 10%, but speed is reduced by 15% with this upgrade. The cost to unlock this upgrade is 50 resources.

You have unlocked the ability to produce air mechs. Please note that there is a high likelihood that the enemy will control the orbitals of the conflict world. If that is the case, air mechs will face a gauntlet of long-range air defense from the ships in orbit. As a result, you may decline the ability to produce air units and will instead gain an air defense upgrade to all your ground and sea-based mechs. In addition, you will be granted one free upgrade token at each tier to use on any non-victory point upgrades. Do you wish to opt-out of air unit production, y/n?

Hugh almost called for Tremaine on the command line to help him decide, wincing inside as he remembered that the brave officer had perished in the battle for the Krixnas homeworld. He had a new air operations commander, but they hadn’t worked together much. With limited resources, would adding an additional mech type be worth the effort? Air units could turn the tide of battle, but what if he invested significant resources into them only to have the orbiting ships pick them off one by one? No, he would be better off taking the free upgrades and concentrating his resources on making his ground units more effective.

“Tran, Cartwright, it looks like air mechs might be problematic for us to use once the enemy is in orbit. What are your thoughts on rejecting them for the upgrades the GCA is promising?” Hugh asked, sending over the GCA prompt. He wished that Maddison was there, she would likely have some min-max gamer logic that would help him make a decision.

“I’d never pass on air support, but if they just get shot down before they can contribute anything useful, we’re better off taking the upgrades and not wasting resources into units that are death traps for the combat pod operators,” Tran said. Hugh hadn’t thought of that angle. Increased casualties among his air mechs would mean a higher overall death rate after the battle was over and that horrible termination calculation was made.

“I agree, if my mechs are getting some free air defense, we should be good. Sure, the Ssath could flood us with air power, but given they had a limited force to bring over for this invasion, I’d expect their numbers are heavily favoring ground-based mechs,” Cartwright added.

“Thanks for the input, we’re going without air support,” Hugh said, making his decision in the interface.

You have elected to not produce air mechs for this conflict. All light mechs and larger units will receive a close-in defensive laser that will automatically engage any hostile air mechs within range. At higher levels, these weapons can serve a dual purpose, and will autonomously engage hostile ground-based mechs when no air threats are present. At tier 10, your assault infantry will be equipped with a lower-powered version of the air defense laser. You have 3 upgrade tokens available for use.

Hugh was excited at being given three upgrade tokens. He had figured the one token per tier was going forward, but the GCA had decided to go back to tier one in their initial token calculation. This tier only had two upgrade options available for him, the Fixed Defenses upgrade and the Enhanced Armor for his light mechs, so he went ahead and purchased both, banking the last token to use the next time his command post tier increased. With his main battle mechs unlocking at tier four, he was sure the number of upgrade options would continue to increase.

His current resource pool stood at just over two thousand and with the police units continuing to uncover salvage opportunities, Hugh didn’t see that number depleting for a while, at least until he reached a higher tier and production speed increased more than it currently was. He started to build the Internal Fortification upgrades for his victory points. He had enough resources to start on four of them and would add the others as resources rolled in.

The progress toward tier four was chugging along, and despite the bonus given to him by holding all ten victory points, the progress would become slower with each tier. Hopefully, whatever plan that Maddison and the other defenders out there in space had cooked up would buy him enough time. Hugh did a quick survey of his exiting units, getting a feel for the forces he had available.

Order of Battle. All units are tier 3.

1. Infantry mechs: 58.

2. Light mechs: 9

Auxiliary Forces.

1. Police mechs: 15.

2. Armored patrol mechs: 5.

It wasn’t much, but it would improve as time progressed. Tran had his infantry dispersed around each of the ten victory points, with five at each point and the remainder providing support to the light mechs. Cartwright had broken up his light mechs into two teams, one positioned to the north and another camped out near the command post to provide security. Eventually, the plan was to have four reaction teams of main battle and light mechs out in the field with a strong force at the command post to protect against any unexpected assaults.

For now, the police liaison, Langerson, had his units patrolling the city and locating any remaining salvage fields. The upgrade to tier three had given him five more officers, but the number of patrol cars had remained the same. Two officers were placed with each patrol car and the five new ones performed a foot patrol near the police headquarters. At tier three, Hugh’s infantry mechs were starting to take on the aspects of the powerful assault infantry they would evolve into at higher tiers, but for now, the police mechs were still unarmored, and weak-looking units with only a single pistol caliber weapon to defend themselves with. Not a military force, Hugh felt they could still do good work firing from inside the fortified police headquarters.

His command post now supported a total of thirty drones, and Hugh assigned the five new ones to begin constructing the improved defenses around the command post. This would be the main target of the Ssath, and he would need all the protection he could get. The victory points also produced a single additional construction drone, which would help with the time-consuming work of installing the Internal Fortifications for each location.

A quick check of the projected Ssath landing points revealed that a few had disappeared. The entire ground still seemed covered in them, and that made Hugh more than a little worried. While the defenders out in space were fighting hard, they had only made significant inroads into the enemy fighters, not doing too much damage to the heavier ships, the ships that Hugh figured carried the bulk of the enemy ground assault troops. Hugh looked in on the space battle, but with the last of the defenders in the asteroid field having fallen, none of the Ssath ships were visible.

The six stations orbiting Jupiter weren’t idle, they were still producing units. Something else had changed, a good chunk of the starships defending the stations had broken off and were heading toward where the Ssath fleet was likely to approach from. It was an odd mix of ships; about a dozen frigates and all of the light carriers they had produced. They were covering the distance at a rapid pace, with the frigates strung out far in advance of the carriers. He didn’t know what they were up to, but it seemed like too small of a force to do much against the large Ssath armada that was heading their way.