War Core Wednesday. War Core 3, Chapter 27.

Chapter 27.

It took time for the Hive of the Widow to replenish its numbers, and during that time, the battle continued in a similar pattern. Hugh’s troops would push the Ssath back toward their base, only to be obliterated by the enemy core. During this time, resources continued to flow in, a few granted with each kill that was made. They kept all their piloted mechs well back from the Ssath core, not wanting to risk being run down by the faster enemy. Whether through some upgrade, or an ability the enemy core possessed, it began to exert some control over the automated mechs being produced at its base. Instead of marching toward the humans using the shortest route, the Ssath alternated which path they marched on, keeping Hugh’s forces busy.

When the Ssath command post hit level nine, new changes appeared, including an expansion of its production buildings to include a medium mech facility. Hugh’s opponent would enjoy a short time of dominance in both lanes of the canyon now that it possessed a firepower advantage. The advantage would be brief, Hugh’s upgrade to level nine was likely only minutes away, but the enemy core was set to take advantage of that brief delay. To make matters worse, the enemy core had somehow bumped the production rate on its infantry barracks, and despite alternating which path they were marching on, a steady flow of units made their way down each lane.

“Everyone pull back, Dalven’s team can hold their barracks, and we’ll stay behind the Hive of the Widow. Don’t engage the Ssath core if it approaches your lane,” Hugh ordered.

“Should we group up now?” Dalven asked.

“No, if the Ssath core decides to join the push we’ll try and counter in the other lane,” Hugh replied. It did look like the Ssath was going to push, but he wasn’t going it alone. The glowing streaks of drop pods appeared in the sky, targeted just outside the Ssath base. Hugh counted ten that slammed into the canyon, and out of each stepped ten infantry mechs accompanied by a light mech. A second wave of five more drop pods landed as soon as the first units cleared the area, giving the enemy a hundred and fifty infantry, along with fifteen light mechs to push the assault.

“This is it, he’s betting everything on this push,” Sergeant Marthman said. It seemed true, the Ssath had to have blown a huge number of resources on upgrading and activating the Reinforcement Drop ability, likely draining his funds to near zero. Normally, that would be a foolish move, but it looked like they were going to face an overwhelming number of enemy mechs, all of them heading toward Hugh’s side of the canyon. As they pulled back to the hive, Hugh tried to come up with a game plan to stop his opponent.

“Any ideas? I’m open to suggestions,” Hugh asked. Conventional officer wisdom said that soliciting advice from your subordinates in the heat of battle was a no go, he was the officer and shouldn’t exhibit doubt in front of his troops, but this was their survival on the line, and if someone had a good idea, he was all for hearing it.

“I may have an idea. Our entire force holds at the Hive of the Widow, which will provide us with additional defenders. At the same time, you spend all our resources to drop troops and push the other lane of the canyon,” Dalven suggested. Even with the spiders assisting their defense, Hugh wasn’t sure they would hold for long enough against the forces the Ssath had brought to the fight, but Hugh liked the idea of a counter push to place pressure on the enemy command post. If the enemy core pulled back to defend, Hugh’s pod-controlled troops, along with the spider mechs, had a good chance of holding off the attack.

“Sir, maybe only a few of us stay to delay the enemy, while the others help with our counter push,” Marthman added.

“Not bad suggestions, but who defends and who pushes?” Hugh asked.

“You need to be the one pushing, if you’re targeted by the enemy core, which it will undoubtedly do once it spots you, we’re all dead. As far as support, I say you take two of the infantry mechs with you. My mech and the Taskmaster are needed to slow the attackers. If we’re lucky, we may get a shot at taking down the enemy core,” Dalven said.

“It’s a plan, Burnette, Hillman, start pushing your side of the canyon, I’m heading your way. Dalven and the others will hold at the hive,” Hugh ordered. This was it, the coming fight would be the end of this long battle.

“We’ll push as much as we can, sir, maybe buy us some extra missiles to deal with the command post?” Hillman asked. The heavier armor of the medium mechs was strong, but even a rifle round from a plasma weapon would eventually burn through it, but with the anti-armor rockets, they would kill them before they caused too much damage. Hugh left all his ammo, repair, armor, and shield modules with the others, which he could replenish when he stopped at the command post for the extra rockets. After handing off his anti-armor rocket to Sergeant Marthman, Hugh moved as fast as he could to the other side of the canyon. Passing Dalven at the command post, Hugh stopped to give him the last of his resupply modules as well.

It turned out there was a hard limit of two rockets that could be stored with each infantry mech, so he purchased what he could for his assault team, along with more than enough ammo to do the job. Resources had been amassing during the time they had waited for the Hive of Widow to activate again, and even after his purchases, Hugh was sitting on 4188, enough for sixteen drop pods of troops. The Ssath had dropped fifteen, and given that they had all been dropped at the command post, Hugh was willing to bet he didn’t have something like the upgrade from his Drop Beacon of the Vanquished.

He was worried that the Ssath might still have a few tricks up his sleeve, but given that he had likely spent a ton of resources to upgrade the drop pods to add a light mech, he was probably tapped out. The mech that the enemy core was piloting was fully upgraded and would be a force to deal with all by itself, not to mention the swarm of AI-controlled troops in front of it. His forces wouldn’t hold for long, but the Hive of the Widow should help to dilute the incoming fire. Hugh needed to save most of his drops for the enemy command post, but he could spare a few to reinforce his men when the enemy arrived.

Thankfully, the Ssath core was content to follow behind his automated troops, mirroring their slow pace. Since they weren’t directly controlled, the light mechs started to pull ahead of the others, which would give his troops a chance to engage and eliminate them before facing the main force of Ssath. During this whole time, the factories and barracks were still producing for both sides, which slowed up the advance as both sides stopped to shoot at each other whenever a fresh mech walked toward them.

At least the production rate of the medium mechs seemed even slower than that of the light mechs. Normally, a light mech was produced for every two or three infantry, but the medium mechs only appeared with every other light mech that was produced. Their speeds were different, as well, the light mechs were slightly faster than the mediums, with the infantry being the slowest. Since Hugh still had a captured barracks on each side of the canyon, he produced more infantry than his foe, and the same number of light mechs, but given the enemy units were a tier higher than his, and they included the occasional medium mech, his troops were pushed back.

The enemy core was pushing toward the Hive of the Widow, which was also the side of the canyon where all the light and medium mechs went. Whatever the Ssath had used to alternate paths for his infantry, it didn’t appear to work on the larger mechs and they just followed the shorter route between the two command posts. Despite being a tier higher, the Ssath infantry was slowly losing ground against the other side of the canyon where Hugh’s team had started their push. With three human-operated mechs, they cut through any opposition with little trouble.

“Enemy light mechs approaching, engaging,” Griggs called out.

Realizing that the light mechs would hit first, Griggs had moved up a bit, walking past the hive to bring his Taskmaster’s firepower into play before the enemy core arrived to make things difficult. Heavy rounds pounded out from Griggs’ twin guns, shattering the armor of the enemy light mechs. The enemy fired back, but Griggs fell back as he fired, trying to keep the gap between them wide, punishing the Ssath’s poor accuracy at longer range. Despite being tier nine mechs, the light mechs were built for speed and melee, forgoing heavier armor to meet the needs of their mission. One by one the enemy light mechs dropped, and as the main horde of the enemy moved into view, the last fell. Griggs’ mech had taken several hits, but by using up most of his repair and replenishment modules, the mech was ready for the coming fight.

Hugh’s force was making good progress, much faster than the Ssath core, but he had a slightly longer path to travel down. When the Ssath force approached the hive, Hugh ordered up four drop pods of reinforcements to help out. He tried to land them far enough back so the mechs inside would reach the hive at about the same time as the enemy. Forty infantry was a paltry force compared to what the Ssath were bringing, but they would hopefully buy his troops time to even the odds with their firepower. Hugh wanted to try and drop the pods directly on the enemy force, but hitting a moving target wasn’t going to be easy, and if he misjudged and dropped them behind the enemy force, they would just wander toward the enemy core and leave the real danger untouched.

It took a few moments for the entire Ssath force to round the bend and come into view of the hive, Hugh trying to check in on them in between taking out the few mechs moving down their side of the canyon. The Ssath core spotted Hugh’s drop pods landing, it would be hard not to, and seemed to hesitate a bit. It was only able to drop units at its command post, and Hugh’s enhanced ability must have come as a shock. He was a little worried the Ssath would turn and run to defend his command post, realizing the threat it now faced, but instead, the Ssath decided to continue on its all-or-nothing attack.

His opponent hadn’t just been saving up for reinforcements, it had also spent resources on further upgrades to its mech, and one of those upgrades now went into action. Where a light mortar tube had once been mounted on the dinosaur-like mech of the enemy core, now a boxy rocket launcher was placed. The ends of the launcher opened up and a barrage of ten rockets blasted out, arcing over to land in the mass of Hugh’s reinforcements. A string of explosions obscured the view, but bits of mechs were hurled out of the rapidly dissipating cloud of dust thrown up by the explosions. Forty mechs had been summoned, but only eleven walked away from the missile attack, many of those damaged to some extent.

Hugh wanted to save ten drop pods for the assault on the enemy command post, so he could only spare two more to reinforce his defenders. Twenty more infantry might not make a difference, but he had to try, timing the drops so the troops would arrive a the hive just after the others did. Griggs’ Taskmaster was now in range of the approaching Ssath, and he started to thin the swarm as much as he could, using the webbing of the hive as concealment as much as he could.

Just as advertised, the Hive of the Widow had continued to expand ever since Hugh had built it. Once settled in the small opening carved from the side of the canyon, the spider defenders had now spun their webbing over a sizeable portion of the main canyon. Hugh’s troops weren’t affected by the webbing, but he was willing to bet the enemy would find it unpleasant when their mechs came into contact with it. Sensing the threat, and probably having had to face a similar challenge in his earlier battles, the Ssath core began to fire at the webbing.

Light cannons shredded the webs, and several rounds hit the spider defenders lurking inside. Smaller caliber weapons from the Ssath force added their fire, but the webbing covered so much area, that it would take the Ssath an hour it didn’t have to clear it completely away. Marthman began to add his rifle fire to the mix, taking down an enemy infantry mech with every few shots. Dalven’s Ripper mech tried to help, but its smaller gun wasn’t all that effective at long range. His strength was in the melee fight, and given the rate they were taking down the Ssath units, the fight would get into melee range before it was over.

“Griggs, pull back further, the core’s got a lock on you!” Sergeant Marthman ordered. The keen-eyed NCO had spotted anti-armor rocket tubes pop out from underneath the Ssath core’s cannons. With a pop, each fired the high-velocity rocket that was locked onto Griggs’ Taskmaster. One rocket was stopped by a friendly infantry mech who inadvertently walked in the path of the rocket at just the right time. It was obliterated for its efforts but likely saved Griggs from a fatal hit. Not exactly the most agile of units, Griggs nevertheless tried to dodge the other rocket, but it homed in on him striking the left arm of the mech.

The blast took out two more of Hugh’s nearby infantry mechs, who were now passing through the webbing to engage the approaching Ssath. The entire arm of Griggs’ mech was blown off, the blast also shearing off the foot on that side and gouging deep into the armor of the Taskmaster. Griggs fell to the ground, severely damaged but was still showing as active in Hugh’s interface. Griggs was out of the fight but should survive if they won the battle.

Without the firepower of the Taskmaster, the main Ssath force closed in. The reinforcements that Hugh had summoned gave a brief but futile fight as they emerged from the webbing right in front of the Ssath horde, an enemy medium mech arrived just in time to tear into them. Dalven waited, not wanting to engage in melee out in the open, but once the Ssath started to enter the webbing he would strike. The Ssath infantry blasted, slashed, and bit their way through the tangle, only to find that the webs were more than just an annoyance to move through, they were also deadly.

The overwhelming majority of the webbing was just strong metal material, but a few locations contained webs that actively flexed and tried to grasp onto any enemy that moved near them, once attached, they secreted the acidic venom that Hugh knew the pain of all too well. Once the majority of the enemy infantry were in the webs and pushing through despite the dangers, the spiders struck. Hugh couldn’t get a good count, but there were dozens of the smaller ones and a handful of the mechs that spit acid out. While the Ssath still outnumbered them, they weren’t going to just roll over Hugh’s defenses, and the spider mechs had the advantage of fighting on the terrain of their choosing.

“Sir, we’re approaching the enemy base,” Burnette called out, drawing Hugh’s attention fully to the situation in front of him. He had been focused mostly on the battle at the hive but was still able to take a pot shot or two at the enemy infantry mechs as they pressed their assault. Burnette and Hillman had done most of the heavy lifting, prompting Hugh to give up some of his spare ammo modules to make up for the extra shooting they were doing. The enemy core was held up at the hive, so they had to finish this before it broke through and slaughtered his soldiers.

Coming around the bend in the canyon, Hugh got a look at the enemy base. Defensive garrison forces responded to their presence and shifted in their direction, many of them positioning themselves behind the low wall surrounding the base, giving their lower bodies cover, even though the simple AI’s controlling them didn’t think to crouch down for better protection. Hugh accessed Reinforcement Drop, moving the targeting reticle to the location where he wanted the pods to land. The system didn’t allow him to target the enemy command post directly, that would have made things easy, tearing down the structure with just the kinetic energy of the pods' impact.

It did turn out that the wall surrounding the base was fair game, right at the edge of the allowed drop zone. Selecting a line across the most heavily defended stretch, Hugh started sending the pain, a total of ten drop pods began to streak down from the sky. He waited for the enemy to react, but the defensive garrison troops just stood there firing on Hugh’s automated mechs that continued their march toward the objective.

“Here it comes, get ready with the rockets, we push past the defenders and lay the hate on that command post,” Hugh ordered, readying his first rocket as the drop pods slammed into the ground. They weren’t totally accurate, but even a near-miss with the large pods was enough to smash a score of defenders. Hugh had counted around a hundred enemy garrison troops and now he had a similar number of his forces exiting the pods and engaging. The three human-controlled mechs charged forward, all of them trying to get a lock on the command post.

“Dalven, back off!” Hugh heard over his comms as a panicked Griggs shouted over the shared channel. Not wanting to interrupt his attack, Hugh shifted his focus for a moment to the other fight to see what was happening. The enemy core was almost through the webbing and then would have a clear path to Hugh’s base. Dalven jumped onto the back of the enemy mech, his oversized claws skittering off the improved shielding and causing him to slide off and land in front of his prey.

Not wasting a moment, the Ssath core picked up Dalven in his jaws and bit down as rounds from Griggs’ remaining gun slammed into it, overloading the core’s shielding. Playing dead would have saved Griggs, so far, the Ssath troops had ignored him, but he was a soldier, and a soldier didn’t play possum when he could save a comrade. Three nearby enemy infantry mechs reacted, pouncing on Griggs and tearing into his mech. Dalven didn’t waste the sacrifice, slamming his claws into the eyes of the mech holding him. The pain feedback must have been intense, causing the Ssath to open his mouth and release the Yaelar soldier, who dropped to the ground, his Ripper mech now too damaged to stand on its own.

“I’ve got a lock, firing,” Burnette called out, snapping Hugh back to the fight he was in the middle of. Hugh’s launcher pinged with a lock on the oversized command post, and he activated his rocket at the same time the other two soldiers did. All three weapons tore deep into the reinforced exterior of the building before exploding, tearing gouts of stone from the walls. Dropping the empty launcher, Hugh readied the second weapon, his soldiers getting off their shots before he did. After the second volley, a large hole had been blasted in the side of the building, and the smoke pouring out told Hugh that they had done at least some damage inside. The three of them charged for the opening, ready to blast the machinery inside until the GCA decided the destruction was complete.

A light mech walked from the factory at the worst possible time, targeting the three humans. Hillman charged the enemy mech, rifle blazing, leaving the way open for Hugh and Burnette to enter the Ssath command post. The troops from his drop pods were dropping fast, taking out enemy defenders but losing in the close-quarters fighting. They needed to finish this or be overwhelmed. Hugh could see there was already extensive damage to the Ssath command post when they had entered. The building was huge, but it had been hit with six anti-armor rockets.

“Light up anything that doesn’t look like it’s already broken, and then shoot the broken stuff,” Hugh ordered, firing at several large machines on the far wall that looked relatively intact. He could hear Burnette’s weapon going, as they both fired at fast as they could, accuracy wasn’t a problem with large targets in an enclosed area. It seemed like it took forever, but was only a short time before everything in Hugh’s field of vision was smoking wreckage. His interface finally populated a structure functionality rating, and it was down to 3%. Burnette was firing at something at the other end of the building, which would hopefully finish the needed destruction, but before Hugh could head over there to help Burnette, he felt the sting of plasma rounds slamming into his mech.

His shield dropped to 14% as Hugh took cover behind some wreckage. He needed to buy time for Burnette to finish off the command post. A trio of defensive garrison mechs was entering the breach, having dealt with his forces outside. The enemy tried to close as Hugh fed his rifle ammo modules and opened fire. He dropped one mech and the other two with their deadly teeth and claws were getting too close for comfort when both collapsed to the ground, like a puppet with the strings cut.

Congratulations! You have destroyed the enemy command post and completed the Combat Trials. All surviving participants will be returned to their combat pods. Your core will return home once the final calculations are complete. A percentage of those soldiers terminated in the last campaign will now be selected for survival based on your performance.

Performance rating: Above Average. With this rating, 18% of those slated for termination from your last campaign will now be revived along with the survivors that participated in the combat trial.