War Core Wednesday, War Core 3, Chapter 22.

Chapter 22.

“This is interesting,” Dalven said as he opened the storage crate. As Hugh suspected, it contained a weapon to fit on the arm mount on his Ripper. A short, twin-barreled gun clicked into place and began tracking imaginary targets as the Yaelar tried it out. A pair of ammo cubes had also been stashed in the crate, and when they were inserted, Dalven advised he only had twenty rounds for the new weapon. As the leader of their group, Hugh was able to access some information on the loadout of the Ripper, and what he saw confirmed the Yaelar mech was going to be a beast for short-ranged combat.

Twin-Barreled Plasma Dispersal weapon. This weapon is designed to interface with the Yaelar Ripper Mech. Once fired, the weapon emits a blast of small plasma fragments that are effective at close range but lose energy and disperse quickly as the distance increases. The rate of fire is low and performance against heavy armor types is subpar, but the weapon is extremely powerful against lightly armored targets.

“It looks like that will pair well with your up close and personal fighting style. I can’t imagine too many mechs would survive a blast from that followed up by your claws,” Hugh said, admiring what was essentially the mech version of a giant double-barreled shotgun.

“Yes, this shall be an effective combination of weapons, as long as your human mechs provide long-range support fire. This mech still has extensive damage, but they did include another repair cube in the supply crate,” Dalven replied, pulling the last item from the crate, a repair cube that he inserted into his mech. He was at 62% effectiveness now and the mech’s limp had almost disappeared.

They were as ready as they could be, once Hugh made his decision on the two options that he had available. The early start for the final stage of the trial seemed like a solid choice. He still had no idea what the final stage of the trial would consist of, so Hugh wasn’t exactly sure how much of an impact the early start would have. On the other hand, the Hive of the Widow was a complete mystery. Given that the hive would give them an additional structure, it seemed like they might be heading toward a more traditional battle. If that was the case, it could save him a big resource expense if he could build the building for free, but what exactly was the hive?

His curiosity won out and Hugh selected the Hive of the Widow for his reward. The GCA didn’t give him any additional information on what he had chosen and instead, the panel he was standing in front of opened and ejected a small cube. Unlike the other cubes that repaired their mechs or added ammunition, this one didn’t seem to want to access his mech in any way, giving only a cryptic message as to its function. At least the panel did reward him an additional fifty requisition points, just not any way to spend them.

This device does not interface with your mech directly, use this device only on an appropriate structure.

What was an appropriate structure? He had no idea and felt a little ripped off given that the promise was for a new structure for the next stage of the trail, not an upgrade or repair of something that already existed. He’d have to wait and see what it was used for, but before they could start the final stage of the trial, they had to complete this one. The team moved out cautiously onto the sand, but the monster that lurked beneath seemed to be content with its full belly. None of them were sure how long the monster would remain satiated, so they moved out at the best possible speed back to the main objective.

The pace was set by the Ripper mech which was still hampered a bit by the damage it had sustained. Dalven insisted on taking point, arguing that his mech had the best sensors to sniff out any additional threats. Having the Yaelar in the lead made it easy for them to maintain their formation, which consisted of the smaller infantry mechs, his included, in the center with the Yaelar leading and Griggs’ Taskmaster mech bringing up the rear. Their journey back to where the optional objective split off from the path of the main objective was uneventful, and they all felt a bit more at ease once the sandy ground began to become rockier and less likely to be hiding any Barku Sand Demons.

Their path led them into another canyon, about what Hugh expected. The GCA was following its usual method of trying to restrict movement in a battle. Before the entrance of the canyon, a metal pole stood up from the rocks, a glowing access panel mounted atop it beeped for Hugh’s attention as they closed in. It wasn’t a logistics interface, to his disappointment, and instead of new upgrades, he was offered a choice on their path forward. According to the map displayed on the panel, the canyon branched into three different directions, all of which led to their objective.

Please select your path to complete this stage of the trail. Each path has multiple encounter points that are rated on a scale of 1 to 10 in difficulty, with 1 being the easiest and 10 being almost guaranteed destruction. The greater the challenge you are willing to face, the greater the rewards you will receive when, and if, you survive this stage.

Hugh explained the paths to his team, and they took a moment to review their options. The left branch of the path had two encounters they would meet, the first one was only rated as a one, but the second was a six. Without a reference point, it was going to be difficult to determine how much more of a challenge a six would be over a one. Was each number a small increase in difficulty, an exponential increase, or an estimate of the tier level of mechs they would be fighting? For all they knew, there wouldn’t even be fighting, and they would have to solve some other kind of problem or puzzle for them to solve. The middle path was the easiest, with three encounters, all of which were rated as a difficulty of one. To their right would be the most difficult of the three, starting with a challenge rated at four, then a seven, and finally, a ten.

“I’m pretty sure we don’t want to take our chances at clearing the one with the challenge rating of ten, but do we go for the easy road down the center of the canyon, or risk whatever a six is on the left?” Hugh asked.

“It would be nice if we could just go forward and take on the first challenge rating one encounter to get a feel for it, but I doubt the GCA is going to let us have time to test and experiment with the difficulty levels,” Sergeant Marthman said.

“This is not the final stage and while we’re better off than when we started, I don’t think we’re ready for a difficult challenge, given that the final trial still awaits. I vote for the easiest path for us to finish this stage and move on,” Dalven said. The others seemed to agree, and though Hugh was tempted to try the path with the challenge rating six, this might be the time to go with a bit more caution. They had already rolled the dice on the optional challenge and came out unscathed and with additional forces, but Hugh wasn’t willing to press their luck.

“Down the middle it is. Keep the same formation. Dalven, if you run into any long-range fire, don’t charge forward, pull back and let the other mechs handle it. If it’s a threat more suited to your mech, have at it and we’ll support you as best we can,” Hugh ordered. Ready, and having a good idea of where each encounter was supposed to be, the team headed deeper into the canyon. The first sign of trouble was a rather impressive blast from both barrels of Dalven’s Ripper. A small depression in the rocky path had concealed a pair of Ssath infantry mechs, but the Yaelar had reacted far too quickly for the pair to surprise Hugh and the others.

“Wow, I want one of those for my mech,” Private Burnette said as the twin blasts ripped apart the obviously low-tier Ssath units. Given their poor performance, Hugh was betting that these and the further challenges they would face were just simple AI-controlled units. If this was a challenge rating of one, Hugh was hopeful they could make it through without too much wear and tear on their mechs.

The second challenge on this path was a bit different. Dalven spotted it early enough, a pair of light turrets mounted in the center of the canyon, scanning for targets. Each turret mounted a rifle caliber weapon, easily outranged by the guns on Griggs’ Taskmaster mech. With everyone pitching in an ammo cube, the heavy machinegun of the Taskmaster chewed apart each turret after only a few bursts of fire, their team safely out of range of the turrets the entire time.

“I’m beginning to think that we should have taken on the challenge rating six path,” Private Hillman said when the last turret was destroyed. As Hugh approached the ruined weapons, searching for requisition points, each turret responded with a final surprise and blew up in Hugh’s face. The blasts weren’t super powerful, far less than that of a grenade, but they did burn and dent his mech, leaving Hugh at 89% functionality when the smoke had cleared.

“Hillman, you idiot, you had to jinx us, didn’t you,” Sergeant Marthman chided.

“While I’m not normally a superstitious person, I have to agree with the Sergeant, refrain from tempting the fates, Hillman, consider that an order,” Hugh said a bit too sharply. He wasn’t all that mad at Hillman, the booby traps were likely already in place when the turrets were constructed, but with the GCA listening in on everything, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that they would arrange for something like this to happen just when the wrong thing was said. It would likely be hilarious to the aliens viewing their struggles, so there was no reason to give them any ideas or encouragement.

“Roger that, sir,” Hillman replied as they continued toward their last challenge. This time, it was a trio of human infantry mechs wielding plasma rifles. These were low-tier units that had been dug into foxholes to make them a bit more difficult to approach. Griggs picked off one using the Taskmaster’s gun, but the remaining pair just ducked down into their holes and avoided giving them any additional easy kills.

“Grigg’s give them a burst every few seconds to keep their heads down, the rest of us will close in,” Hugh ordered. The AI-controlled mechs kept under cover, their programming likely forcing them to even as the rest of the team approached the nearest fighting position. Griggs held his fire once they were nearby, and it was a simple thing to lean over and put a few rounds into their target. They repeated the process with the final mech, this one managing to squeeze off a shot before succumbing to their fire. Hillman’s mech took a glancing blow on the hip, but the damage was minimal.

With the last challenge cleared, they didn’t have far to go before they spotted a large steel hatchway mounted into the stone of the canyon. A quick check by Dalven didn’t reveal any potential threats, and once they opened the hatch, a prompt told the team that this stage of the quest was complete, and the last stage was about to begin. They walked into a cavernous storage room, with the very welcome sight of a logistics interface mounted on the far wall.

Congratulations, you have completed this stage of the trial and survived the low-difficulty path. You will be given a brief time to make any repairs you might need and resupply yourselves before the final trial begins. You will face another core as your opponent in the final trial and they have received a reward that grants them a time advantage. Once you indicate that you are ready, your team will be held back from your command post for five minutes while the other core begins its work. The final trial is complete when a core is destroyed. Please make your selections for upgrades quickly, even with your opponent having a time advantage, excessive delays will not be tolerated.

To the team’s delight, there was another of the odd repair drones in the room, this one was fully functional and able to repair all the damage they had taken. While their mechs would be fully operational, the drone worked slowly, giving Hugh some concern that it wouldn’t be ready before the final stage began. It also couldn’t give them any ammunition, meaning they would have to buy what they needed before the fight began.

“Let’s get two repair kits for everyone and three for the Ripper and Taskmaster. Whatever requisition points I have left will go toward ammo. As much as I want to explore more upgrades for our mechs, I don’t want to jump into our final battle without a full ammo load,” Hugh said.

All the mechs not actively being repaired by the drone queued up for Hugh to make their purchases. They had received a few requisition points from the enemies they had taken out, and another fifty for finishing the trial, but they went quickly when you had to reload the two larger mechs. When they were done, both the Ripper and the Taskmaster had a full loadout of ammo and a couple of extra ammo cubes to top off with. The rest of them were well stocked for a good-sized fight, but they would need additional ammo and upgrades at some point in the battle.

A red warning light flashed, warning them that the final stage of the Combat Trials was about to begin. Hugh would be going up against another core and only one of them would survive this fight. Hugh was determined it would be his core. He wasn’t going to lose any more men, everyone here, including the Yaelar, was going to make it home.