War Core Wednesday. War Core 3, Chapter 18.

Chapter 18.

“It looks like someone left a few goodies for us. There are three repair modules, I’d like each of you to take one, my mech is the best off of the bunch, so I’ll hold off on any repairs until yours are in better shape. The pistol will go to Sergeant Marthman, and the armor upgrades will go to Pack Monitor Dalven and Private Burnette,” Hugh said, handing out their prizes.

The sergeant mounted the pistol under his right arm and all three placed the repair modules into a chest-mounted port that all of the mechs seemed to possess. Bright flashes showed where the limited life nanobots were doing their work, and after a few seconds the flashing stopped and the damage, while far from completely repaired, showed signs of improvement. The armor worked in the same manner, but this time, a thin sheen of liquid metal rolled out over their bodies. It wasn’t enough to completely protect the mechs, and what little of the goo there was seemed to move to the more vulnerable areas, improving their protection.

Mech H001, Sergeant Marthman.

Functionality: 43%

Mech H002, Private Burnette.

Functionality: 47%

Armor: 10%

Mech Y001, Pack Monitor Dalven.

Functionality: 40%.

Armor: 10%.

Unfortunately, the repairs didn’t remove the warning for an increased chance of critical damage, the threshold for that must be well above the 40% range all the soldiers were currently in. Marthman confirmed his plasma pistol was loaded, but only held twenty-five shots. They didn’t have a lot of firepower just yet, and with the Yaelar mech damaged, their melee capacity wasn’t that great either. The GCA tended to at least put up the appearance of fairness, so Hugh hoped they wouldn’t throw too much at him until they had a chance for more repairs.

With only one direction to go, they continued down the hallway, its metal walls, ceiling, and floor covered in increasing amounts of the spider mech webbing. They continued a cautious advance, watching any areas that might hold a spider mech or any other nasty surprises. They had been walking down the twisting path for a few minutes when they began to hear something in the distance. As they closed, the sound of plasma fire was heard as well as metal crashing on metal.

“Sounds like a fight ahead. There’s the chance of ambush, but if those are our men, we need to get to them. Pick up the pace,” Hugh ordered. The small group began to jog down the passage. It was a gamble, but with fighting going on in the distance, Hugh was willing to bet that any ambushers would have been drawn toward the sounds of combat instead of camping out in a web-filled hallway.

The sounds increased, as they rounded a final bend and the passageway that they were following opened up into a huge open chamber. Hugh held back his force, the sounds of combat they were hearing were now interspersed with the screeches of Ssath war cries. Hugh walked to the end of the passage and poked his head into the chamber to see what they were up against. The sight was shocking, the huge compartment in front of him appeared to be the ruins of a starship’s cargo hold. Damaged shuttlecraft and debris were strewn about, and the entire place was dripping with metallic webbing from the spider mechs.

In the center of the chamber, near the ceiling was a huge spider mech, easily the size of a small home. It was all black and had the hourglass symbol of a black widow on its abdomen. As he watched, the bulbous abdomen contracted and a stream of metallic webbing shot at a group of Ssath infantry mechs that were charging the beast. One of the mechs was caught in the blast, the webbing contracting and crushing the mech, holding it still. The others ignored their incapacitated comrade and continued to charge the black widow mech. At the far end of the compartment, another group of Ssath battled against a swarm of the smaller mechs. Before he was seen, Hugh ducked back into the passageway, noting that the Ssath seemed to have only melee weapons, no plasma rifles or pistols.

“We got trouble, Ssath and spider mechs are battling it out in there. To make matters worse, there’s some giant spider mech hanging down from the ceiling,” Hugh advised the team.

“How many Ssath and spiders are we talking about?” Marthman asked.

“I counted ten or eleven Ssath attacking the giant spider, but there was a similar number on the far side of the chamber fighting a group of the smaller spiders. It looked like the fight was pretty even, so our best bet is to keep an eye on them and stay put until we can turn the tide in our favor,” Hugh said. There were no objections other than Dalven clacking his claws in anticipation of combat. To his credit, the Yaelar followed Hugh’s command as the group crept around the corner, trying to remain unseen as they watched the action unfold.

Thankfully, the four of them poking their heads into the chamber weren’t noticed by any of the other combatants, all of whom were focused on the danger in front of them. The black widow had skewered two of the approaching Ssath on her spear-like legs. Her giant mandibles crushed another as the group scrambled up the webbing to reach their prey. Claws and teeth ripped into the black widow mech, which gave a screech of pain and anger as it struggled to reach the smaller Ssath mechs crawling over it.

Without warning, the black widow mech dropped from the ceiling, letting go of the webbing to crash to the deck below. Hugh could see the drop of about twenty feet damaged the giant spider, several legs were bent at strange angles and there were new dents in its armored abdomen. The effect on the Ssath attackers was almost as bad, two were crushed under the spider’s body, and another, already showing prior battle damage, shattered as it landed on the solid metal deck. Four Ssath survived the fall, and pulled themselves to their feet, resuming the attack on their giant prey.

A blast of venom sprayed from the black widow, coating the Ssath with the acidic substance. Metal started to melt off their mechs, but the Ssath ignored the damage, charging in and renewing their attacks. They managed to pry off one of the black widows’ legs before they finally succumbed to the venom. The giant spider mech took some time to make sure, skewering any Ssath that looked like it might still have some fight left in it, not forgetting the one it had tied up in webbing earlier. The earlier victim had almost freed itself, but the spider reached it before it could finish cutting itself free.

At the far side of the compartment, the Ssath there had won their fight against the smaller spider mechs, but their victory wasn’t without losses. Only four Ssath were still in the fight, and several of those showed signs of battle damage. Like all their kin, the Ssath were fearless, charging to attack the black widow mech, zig-zagging across the floor to avoid any web attacks or spraying venom. One was a bit too slow, eating a stream of venom that melted it down quickly. The other three leaped to attack, one impaling itself on a leg spike as the other two landed on the black widow’s abdomen and started ripping into the battered armor covering it.

“Get ready, we’ll take out whoever’s left,” Hugh told the others.

“Any bets on the winner? I think the black widow mech takes the last two Ssath,” Private Burnette said.

“I agree, human, the Ssath are strong warriors, but they are fighting foolishly, caught up in their bloodlust,” Dalven agreed.

“Looks like you two are right, Marthman, you go left, I’ll go right, empty your weapon into whatever looks damaged on that mech then move into melee. Dalven and Burnette, get in close, don’t do anything stupid, just keep it distracted while we unload some plasma into it,” Hugh ordered as one of surviving Ssath was bitten in half by the black widow. The final dino-mech tore through the armored abdomen and was tearing out components and wires from its giant foe. The black widow mech screeched in pain as it used a leg to impale its final attacker.

Hugh entered the compartment and hooked right, following the wall, and firing at the giant spider in front of him. His first few rounds hit the thing's head, causing the monster to turn toward him. As it turned, the damaged abdomen was uncovered for Sergeant Marthman who began pumping pistol shots into the wound. Not as powerful as his rifle, the pistol was still devastating to the unarmored innards of the mech, causing sparks and flame to lick at the open wound.

Confused, the already battered giant mech seemed unable to settle on a target, going toward Marthman, only to turn its anger back on Hugh when a burst from his plasma rifle melted off one of the monster’s legs. Dalven and Brunette were ignored, the human mech’s sharpened spider leg doing nothing to the armored hide of the monster, and while the Yaelar mech was making headway, it wasn’t causing the spider the same level of pain that Hugh and Marthman were.

The monster twitched its open wound away from Marthman, using the movement to hurl a strand of webbing at Hugh. Caught off guard, and mainly worried about the venom attack from the spider’s head, Hugh failed to dodge in time. Whether from the damage it had already soaked up, or due to exhausting its stores of webbing, only a single strand hit Hugh. The strand wrapped around his legs, causing his mech to crash to the deck and slide across the floor until he hit the ruins of a transport craft of some kind.

Pain shot from his legs as the webbing contracted, crushing his appendages as Hugh struggled to free himself. His line of sight was blocked by the transport, and with Marthman’s pistol had gone silent, likely out of ammo, Hugh knew he needed to get back into the fight quickly. Movement to his side almost got him to trigger off a shot before he realized it was Private Burnette coming to help.

“I’ll get that off you, sir,” Burnette said, prying at the webbing with his broken spider leg, doing more harm than good.

“No, take this and get into the fight, bring that monster down,” Hugh ordered, detaching the rifle and handing it to Burnette. It was down to twenty-two rounds, which would hopefully be enough to finish off the badly damaged enemy. Training kicked in, and the private mounted the weapon under his arm and immediately began firing, moving away from Hugh as he tried to avoid any incoming webs or venom from the spider.

Hugh picked up the private’s dropped spider leg, using it to carefully chip away at the webbing. It was slow going, and he became worried when the sound of the plasma rifle firing stopped. In his HUD, Hugh could see the functionality rating for the Yaelar drop to 15%, and then Marthman’s dipped as well. After that, the compartment got eerily quiet, and for a moment, Hugh worried that his team had all been webbed up by the black widow mech and they were going to be the main course in the mech’s next meal.

“Sir, we’ve brought that thing down, Dalven is making his way over to help you,” Marthman called out. Walking on three of his four limbs, Dalven crawled around the corner, one of his legs torn off at the knee, but the pain didn’t seem to keep him from functioning. A few swipes of the mech's sharp claws were all that was needed to free Hugh. Just like with the other spiders, once it was dead, the webbing it created started to decay rapidly.

Using the spider leg as a makeshift cane, Hugh struggled to his feet, noting that his armor was completely depleted, and his functionality had dropped from 83% to 67% when his legs were partially crushed. Hugh ordered the others to look for a logistics interface panel, while he hobbled around and gathered any requisition points, he could from the destroyed mechs. The smaller spider mechs and Ssath units didn’t always give him a point, the GCA reducing the reward since his forces didn’t have a direct hand in their destruction.

It was important for him to remember that he did get at least some points from the battlefield casualties, it meant that they didn’t have to always gun down their opponents to receive some benefit. A more cautious strategy could be used again if enemies were attacking each other. The black widow spider mech gave the most to him, a full twenty-five requisition points. After everything was gathered, he was up to a total of forty-two. Not having seen how much stuff cost, he had no idea if that was a good amount or not.

“Sir, we found something, it’s not an interface, but it should help,” Burnette said, offering to pass the rifle back to Hugh, who let him keep it for now. It was useless until they found more ammo, and if he was honest, the private was probably a better shot than he was. Near one of the ruined transports, a shattered construction drone still lit up with power, the unit communicating with Hugh as he approached.

Acceptable command unit detected. This drone is ready to serve. Functionality is minimal, but repairs may be completed until internal power is depleted.

Error…mobility is impossible, please approach for repairs.

Hugh heard the drone in his head, but he was cautious, it wasn’t a drone design he was familiar with, having a strange, cylindrical body with numerous small tools extending from it. The lower half of the drone was sheared off, the obvious cause of its lack of mobility. With nothing to lose, Hugh ordered the others to stay back and hobbled toward the drone. When he was close enough the drone communicated with him again.

Remain immobile, repairs will commence shortly, power ratings are at 38% and dropping.

The small tools began to tap and spark on the damaged legs of Hugh’s mech. He could feel the pain dissipate as the repairs began to take effect. With a disturbing screech of metal, the legs were forced back into the correct place and the mech sent probes further up, working on the damage to his shoulder that the spider venom had caused earlier. The process was surprisingly fast, and in less than a minute, his mech was back at 100% functionality.

Repairs complete, do you wish this unit to fabricate additional armor to replenish your stores? It should be noted that this process is very power-intensive and current reserves are at 29%.

Hugh held off on any armor, and instead waved the Yaelar over, who had the most damaged mech of the bunch. The repair process began again, and when it was done, Dalven’s mech was back to 100% as well. Sadly, it seemed it was all or nothing with this repair drone, he couldn’t order it to only make partial repairs. With its power down to 11%, the next soldier would likely drain the last of it. Sergeant Marthman had taken a glancing blow from one of the black widow’s legs, and he was worst off between the two remaining soldiers, so Hugh ordered him in next.

When the repairs to Marthman’s mech were complete, the drone was down to one percent of its power. It started on Burnette but only brought him up to 39% before going offline. They were in better shape, but out of ammo and with limited weapons. Not wanting to leave just yet, Hugh ordered the soldiers to continue to scrounge around the compartment, there had to be a logistics interface in here somewhere, didn’t there?