War Core Wednesday. War Core 3, Chapter 31.

Chapter 31.

“He’s back!” Hugh heard Maddison shout as his consciousness returned home.

“Hugh, welcome back. We need to debrief right away, the Ssath are on our doorstep, and we don’t have much time to get you plugged into the fight,” Admiral Nix said.

“Sir, the combat pods placed in stasis by the GCA are starting to come online. We have seven survivors,” One of the medical staff announced.

“Good news, now I need the command team in the conference room in ten. Get moving everyone,” Nix said. Hugh listened as the other officers welcomed him back, all of them genuinely happy at his return, none more so than Maddison, who started a rapid-fire barrage of questions.

“Hold up for a minute, Maddison, I need to get my bearings,” Hugh said.

“Cool, I’ll see you at the conference, maybe we can talk later if there’s time. I get the feeling we’re all about to be busier than we’ve ever been,” Maddison said, walking away from the giant metallic bulk of Hugh’s war core, where, given the makeshift workstation placed alongside him, she had set up shop since he had been gone.

Hugh sifted through the video feeds on base, looking for the combat pod storage area the medical tech had mentioned. It was a level below where he was at now, a space with two dozen combat pods lined up against the far wall of a supply room. Medical techs were pulling seven soldiers from the pods. They looked to be in poor shape but were alive.

“Sergeant Marthman?” Hugh asked over the nearest speaker. One of the emaciated soldiers looked up, nodding before trying to answer, his voice a hoarse croak after being in stasis for so long.

“Sir, I don’t think they’ll be able to speak just yet, give them some time to recuperate,” the officer in charge of the medical staff told him.

“Roger that, I just wanted to say thank you to my soldiers, we’ve been through a lot together, take good care of them, Major,” Hugh told the medical officer.

“They’re in good hands, sir,” the major told him. He could identify the names of his troops as they were pulled from the pods. Marthman, Burnette, Hillman, and Griggs were among the survivors, along with three others that hadn’t participated directly in the fight. Five pods remained closed, their indicator lights blinking an ominous red. While he was happy to save seven out of the twelve that had been designated as potential casualties, the five deaths weighed on him, joining all the others that were there since he had started this horrible life as a war core. He hoped that the Yaelar, Dalven, was also welcoming survivors home.

A quick check over the video feeds on the base showed the place had grown. Two new floors were dug out below the current base, both were packed with thousands of combat pods of a new design. These were sleeker and looked better made than the ones they normally used. Hugh would have to wait until the debrief to figure out what exactly had changed with them. It took ten minutes for the command team to gather in the conference room, or on a video link. Hugh was the last to join in.

“Let’s get started, Hugh before we dig into the Ssath problem, can you tell what exactly happened to you out there? All we received was a notification mentioning that you were tagged as a casualty and had to do some combat trial to see if you could pull through. Given the fact that you’re here, I assume you passed the challenge?” Nix asked.

“Yes, sir, I lost the roll of the dice and was supposed to be a casualty after the free for all battle between me, the Yaelar, and the Ssath. We should probably start there, what exactly were our leaders thinking, pulling the Yaelar into the war without their consent?” Hugh said as his anger built.

“A damn load of stupidity happened, too many politicians listening to too many ‘expert’ advisors. You should know that a lot of heads rolled and about half the world’s war council, which is what the group leading our war efforts is now called, has been replaced. Some of them are even facing criminal charges for misleading the military about what was going on,” Nix said.

“That’s well and good, but heads rolled out on the battlefield too, and those soldiers didn’t just lose their cushy jobs, they lost their lives because of this. The Yaelar seem like they’re just about ready to declare war on us, I think their fear of the Ssath is the only thing keeping them from seeking revenge. Think about it, a lot of their people died because of stupid decisions that our side made. I almost died because of it when I tried to make things right. I say we ship all those that were involved over to the Yaelar to deal with, you do know that they kind of resemble werewolves, I’m sure they could take care of problem real fast and save us the expense of a trial,” Hugh said, trying and failing to keep back his anger.

“I can’t promise you they’ll get what they deserve, but at least they’ll face some punishment for their actions, and with them out of the picture, we’ll have a better chance at victory,” Nix said.

“What about the Yaelar, have we reached out to them at all?” Hugh asked.

“From what I understand yes, I don’t think we're getting anywhere, but the effort is being made. It’s something that is outside my pay grade, so I can’t give you any details. Continue with the debrief, Major,” Nix said, letting Hugh know the issue was over. Hugh bristled at the lack of further discussion on the Yaelar but realized that even Admiral Nix had little control over what was going on behind the scenes. He tried and almost failed to calm himself, realizing that they needed to move forward and work to stop the Ssath.

“Very well, sir, the battle with the Ssath and Yaelar was a mess. My forces were outmatched by the Ssath core, and there was little chance I could win the fight. I made the decision to support the Yaelar core and help them to achieve victory and protect that border of their territory from any additional Ssath incursions. You already know my core was selected as a casualty, and I was given a chance to fight in a rather odd battle for a chacne to come back alive,” Hugh said.

“You willingly lost the battle, just to help an alien core,” Markum, their intel liaison, asked.

“Yes, and if you want to kick me out of the Army for my indiscretion, go right ahead, I could use a vacation,” Hugh growled back.

“Ha, that would be too easy, Hugh, and no, I wasn’t insinuating you did anything wrong, I just wanted to push this up higher to let them know your efforts at salvaging the situation with the Yaelar. Maybe we can use that in any further negotiations,” Markum said. Hugh had a natural distrust of intel people, as most officers in the military had, but Markum had proven himself after some initial missteps and Hugh trusted him about as much as he could trust anyone in Markum’s position.

“In that case, you may want to mention a Yaelar called Pack Monitor Dalven. We rescued him in the combat trial, and hopefully, helped a few of his men to survive the ordeal. He seemed appreciative, but I don’t the Yaelar will place us on their Christmas card list anytime soon. As far as the trail, it had several different stages, but the minutiae of the fight that the GCA organized can be gone over later, I assume you have more news for us, given the fact that there’s an imminent invasion of Earth about to kick off,” Hugh said.

“Good, I don’t know if the GCA gave you any details?” Nix asked. Hugh let him know the strange messages he had received when coming home, that was it. “Okay, it appears the Ssath had drained their accounts of influence points to start their campaign against us early, and they’ve burned through even more to push through or bypass our territory to strike at Earth itself,” Nix said, pulling up a map of humanity’s territory. Red arrows punched through at several points, and many of the attacks were held back, but the pressure was too much and one of the arrows dug deep into human space, making a beeline toward Earth.

“How did they get so far, so fast? I know I’ve been gone a few months, but this kind of progress must have taken years, or more like centuries to make it that far,” Hugh asked.

“It was a combination of factors, they spent what we’re figuring is their very last influence point to overwhelm the fronts, allowing multiple Ssath cores to attack a single human core. We received some advantages, including being granted an infusion of influence points, even when we lost, you know how the GCA likes to at least appear to play fair. After it became apparent that the Ssath couldn’t be stopped through normal means, we began to plan for Earth’s defense. The invasion was put on pause as the battlefield is prepared. Apparently, even the GCA needs a little time to create an exact duplicate of our solar system, but the invasion could kick off at any moment,” Nix said.

The situation had deteriorated quickly, and Hugh was almost glad he was out for most of the running battles. He felt confident fighting a Ssath core, but two at once wasn’t a winnable situation. Hugh’s fear of the Ssath wasn’t just due to their combat prowess, they had been fighting for so long that most of their cores had become high-level monsters with far too many upgrades. In addition, they had conquered so much, that they had seemingly unlimited resources, but given the intel, it appeared even their reserves of influence points were running out. Smith, their CIA liaison took over next on the briefing, pulling up images of a ring of satellites circling Earth.

“As you can see, the GCA’s preparations are well underway. These are the same type of satellites that tore up the Krixnas homeworld during our fight there, I’m afraid they’re poised to do the same to Earth when the battle commences. In addition, these transport ships just appeared, and the GCA instructed us to install these special combat pods. Some were updated ones for our soldiers, giving them the ability to pilot their pod and command AI-generated units. That’s what they told us, there could be other features that will be made known later, when the battle starts,” Smith said.

“I thought we could make our own combat pods, why the delivery service?” Hugh asked.

“These new pods are apparently more advanced than our puny human tech can replicate, and the transports also brought these,” Smith said, pulling up the image of what looked like another, oddly shaped, but basic-looking pod design. It was only when he was shown a picture of one that had transformed itself into a bubble covering most of a city, that Hugh could see the true scale of the thing.

“How many of those did they bring, and why?” Hugh asked.

“The transports brought one of these monsters for each of our cores, our count stands at one hundred and seven active cores. These bubbles have already been dropped over the largest cities near each core. According to the GCA, the populations inside have been placed in stasis and will be part of the prize that the Ssath are after from our world. These cities are going to become hunting preserves and livestock farms for the Ssath if we lose. As far as the rest of humanity, those of us outside the bubbles, we won’t survive a defeat,” Smith said with concern, gesturing toward the image of the deadly GCA satellites orbiting Earth.

“Can we communicate with the people inside?” Hugh asked.

“No, at least not yet. They’re all being held in stasis, and we haven’t been granted any way to communicate with them. From what little information the GCA has given us, they are essentially asleep for the time being,” Smith replied.

“I hope they stay that way until this is over, nobody would want to be awake during this,” Maddison said.

“Because of where we’re located, I assume one of these is over Los Angeles or Orange County?” Hugh surmised.

“Correct, it covers a good chunk of the LA area, from San Fernando in the north to Long Beach in the south. Our base is offshore, so we’re not under the bubble,” Smith confirmed.

“What’s next, has the GCA set the parameters for the battle? Are we doing anything to minimize civilian casualties and destruction?” Hugh asked.

“The GCA has us on standby while they create what they’re calling the conflict system. Our negotiators are already working, and the back-and-forth demands are ongoing between us and the Ssath,” Smith said.

“How are we doing on influence points? The Ssath have run out, but do we have enough to help swing things in our favor?” Hugh asked.

“We didn’t have much to work with, but strangely enough, points have been flowing in from other species that are threatened by the Ssath. It’s not much, maybe twenty points here, ten there, but given how many the Ssath have angered, it’s starting to add up. The Ssath are trying to commit the majority of their cores to this offensive, if we stop them, the pressure on other species’ territories will decrease substantially. Even if we lose the fight, we’ll have bled the Ssath dry and will likely take out some of their war cores permanently,” Smith said.

“Can we track who’s sending us points?” Hugh asked.

“No, the points just appear in our GCA account referencing a donation. I do know the donors are paying way more than we’re receiving, the GCA is taking a huge slice off the top, but we’re still getting a solid amount, and the flow of influence points don’t seem to be slowing down,” Smith said.

“What exactly are we going to do with them?” Hugh asked. They would be pulling out all stops to prevent the fall of Earth and humanity, so he assumed the account would be drained to gain some advantage. Maybe he would even receive something directly to help in the coming fight.

“A strategy has been decided on, and we’re just waiting to see how much we’ll have to work with before deciding how we want to handle the coming campaign. Once things are finalized, we’ll brief you and the other cores. For now, we’re just waiting on the final totals, and the GCA to start the ball,” Smith said. It seemed the wait was just about over, given the notification popping up in front of Hugh.

The battle for the human homeworld of Earth has begun. Your core has been chosen as a participant and is assigned to defend the human city of Los Angeles. Parameters for this campaign will be disclosed momentarily.