War Core Wednesday, War Core 3, Chapter 14.

Chapter 14.

Hugh’s mechs patrolled outside the restricted area around the Ssath command post. They were alone for five minutes as the Ssath structures were quickly rebuilt by whatever method the GCA used. Once the buildings were whole, he could see the factories start producing units. Around that time, a pair of construction drones from the Yaelar arrived and to Hugh’s surprise, began to repair his mechs. It didn’t take them long before all ten of the survivors were operating at 100%.

When the countdown on the protected zone was halfway done, two squads of the Yaelear werewolf mechs arrived and arranged themselves around the perimeter. By now, the Ssath had made considerable progress in rebuilding their numbers and already had a score of infantry and four of their light mechs stomping around. Two squads of Yaelar infantry along with Hugh’s troops weren’t going to hold back the Ssath for long, given that every minute that passed brought more and more Ssath units online.

“The rest of my assault force is on the way, I have maxed out my unit cap and am now working on upgrades,” Harkona advised.

“Good, we’ll need everything we can scrounge up to stop the Ssath. How are your resources holding up?” Hugh asked. The Yaelar had taken over all the resource gathering stations now that the Ssath were out of commission, but even with those online, it would take some time to gather enough to build expensive structure upgrades and research new tech for his units.

“We’re okay for now, I’ve upgraded everything but the command post, which we can't afford to upgrade just yet. I have researched something that will help us hold back the Ssath, watch my construction drones,” Harkona said. Hugh watched as the pair of drones began construction just outside of the range of the Ssath units. They worked fast and after a minute the shape of a gun turret began to take shape.

The weapon was different than the type Hugh used, and instead of an armored turret, it was a single exposed gun on a swivel mount that allowed for a 360-degree traverse.  It was about the same caliber as a heavy machinegun and instead of relying on armor to protect it, the gun position was dug into the ground where it could retract out of sight when not in use.

“Captain Tran, what do you think of their automated defense turrets?” Hugh asked, wanting to get additional opinions on the design.

“I think it’s great for the early stage of the battle when guns don’t have a high rate of fire, but later on, our guns can pump out rounds continuously and the armored turret would be better. Once the rate of fire climbs, that gun will have to be exposed longer and it’s a lot more vulnerable to return fire than our guns,” Tran offered.

“I was thinking the same thing, bad at higher tiers, but better and less resource-intensive at the start of a battle. Maybe we can see about doing something like that for early in the fight and have the higher tier guns with a better rate of fire come with an armored turret instead of an exposed weapon?” Hugh pondered. The GCA had hard locked him into upgrade paths, but there had been times when it offered some flexibility, and seeing new tech in action just might trigger the chance to make tweaks to his units.

“More reinforcements from the Yaelar are arriving, and one of my soldiers thinks he sees some of their stealth units hiding near our mechs,” Tran said, highlighting where he thought the stealthed units were lurking. It was hard to tell, but when the stealthed unit moved, a slight burring effect could be seen. When they were still, Hugh had no way to spot them. Hopefully, the Ssath commander hadn’t figured it out yet, and the units could surprise the enemy mechs when he charged at Hugh’s infantry. He didn’t think there were too many of the stealthy units, and he assumed they were likely to be expensive and unit cap intensive to produce.

Marching into view was another squad of infantry and a pair of the Yaelar light mechs, their giant cat-like machines that moved fast and hit hard in melee. His nominal ally and the Ssath were similar in their combat philosophy, preferring melee but not exactly neglecting ranged firepower to do so. Until Harkona was able to upgrade the command post, this was all they were going to get to fight the battle. The construction drones began work on the second pair of turrets, which would help, but they wouldn’t have time to build a third pair before the fight was on once more.

“It’s about to start, prepare your troops for battle,” Harkona called as the restricted zone began to flash, indicating the timer was counting down the last few seconds. Ssath forces had swelled to nearly forty infantry and eight light mechs. They were far enough back to prevent the Ssath defensive garrison mechs from joining the fight. He was concerned that the Ssath commander had controlled the battlefield for longer and had likely hit a tier higher than the Yaelar. Both were fielding higher tier units than Hugh’s simple infantry.

When the timer on the protected area expired, all hell broke loose as mechs charged each other with guns blazing. Captain Tran walked his infantry backward, not wanting to get stuck into melee with the Ssath, but the Yaelar were more than happy to oblige. With longer-ranged weapons, Hugh’s troops were able to focus their fire on the Ssath light mechs, and even with the low tier infantry’s slow rate of fire, began to burn through the armor on the mechs one by one. A few infantry charged his forces, but they would shift fire and blast apart any of the stragglers that headed their way.

Realizing it was taking a beating from the human infantry mechs, the Ssath light mech they were currently targeting shredded the Yaelar it was fighting and charged toward Hugh’s troops. Captain Tran was experienced in fighting this type of battle and spread out his troops as the mech charged it, keeping up a constant fire. Their rifle fire began to have an effect, the mech stumbled as it crashed into the nearest infantry unit. Teeth and claws tore into the human mech, but by the time it had made its kill, the Ssath was reduced to a pile of sparking parts. One soldier down, the infantry continued to fire into the melee of mechs.

The four turrets also got into the act, popping up from the ground to fire a volley before dropping back down as their weapons recharged. While only firing one shot at a time, the heavy rounds were particularly deadly to the Ssath infantry, one shot was usually all it took. Despite the losses they were taking, the Ssath were slowly gaining the upper hand, killing more of the Yaelar than they were losing in return. Hugh’s forces also started to take more losses, as several of the Ssath infantry and another light mech concentrated on his troops.

Flashing into view, the Yaelar stealth mechs made their appearance. As Hugh suspected, they were few in number, but having them spring up out of nowhere shocked the Ssath troops they had targeted. The six stealth mechs each made a kill before the enemy knew they were there. Unfortunately, these mechs were very lightly armored, and once spotted, they couldn’t hold their own for very long. Captain Tran’s forces continued to fight, but he was now down to four infantry, the survivors retreating behind the four turrets to support their fire.

The last of the Yaelar mechs were cut down and the surviving Ssath charged toward the human infantry. Popping up for one last volley before they were torn apart, the turrets scored two more infantry kills and Hugh’s soldiers also dropped a pair of the enemy. Before he lost his view of the area, Hugh tried to get a count of the number of surviving Ssath. All the light mechs were out of the fight, and there was only a handful of infantry remaining. His attention was drawn away by a system prompt that appeared as the last mech fell.

Without any active forces on the battlefield, possession of the control point has been relinquished. The rebuilding of your command post and other structures will now commence.

Hugh was back in the fight, or at least he would be once the five-minute timer for rebuilding his base finished counting down. He still had access to the buildings on his interface, queuing up as many infantry to be built as he could manage. With the control point no longer his, resources had started to flow in once more. It wasn’t much, but he should be able to build up enough to at least get some infantry moving to scout out what was going on with the rest of the battlefield.

Shifting his focus to the command post, Hugh could see some wreckage strewn about, ready to be harvested by his drones. The Ssath hadn’t had the time or the spare construction drones available to drag all the debris back to their base, so there was a decent amount available for him to use. Shifting his build queue, Hugh opted to start with ten construction drones before beginning to build up his infantry forces. Once everything was ready, he keyed the comm channel for Harkona.

“Harkona, when my mechs were destroyed it kicked me out of the control point. The countdown is underway for my structures to be rebuilt, and I’ll start producing units as soon as I can. How’s the fight going for you?” Hugh asked.

“Right now it’s a stalemate, the Ssath keep pushing back my attacking forces, but I think they are running low on resources. I still control their resource gathering station and given their losses, they have to be burning through their reserves,” Harkona said.

“I’ll still be boxed in by the protective zone for ten minutes once my structures are rebuilt, but when that expires, I’ll need my resource gathering station back,” Hugh said, a little worried the Yaelar wouldn’t want to give it up.

“Very well, I shall agree to that, I need you strong enough to support me once I’m ready to make a play for the control point. For now, I need to concentrate on the battle. Let me know when you have forces ready to commit to the fight and we’ll coordinate our efforts,” Harkona said, cutting the line.

When the initial five-minute period was up, Hugh's base rebuilt itself. Enough resources had trickled in to build his two squads of drones and a single infantry mech. He got the drones to work on gathering salvage and had Tran position his infantry as close to the edge of the protected zone as he could, making for the shortest route possible to get to and control the resource gathering station.

By the time the ten minutes of protection ended, Hugh had a squad of infantry built and resources coming in to build a mech every minute or so. His defensive garrison troops, all ten of them, had been built automatically and were patrolling near the low wall that protected his base. Once he maxed out his infantry force, Hugh would be at a bottleneck with unit supply until he had the five hundred resources needed to upgrade his command post. The Yaelar hadn’t told him what tier his command post was, but Hugh figured he had upgraded it at least once. He compared notes on the Ssath structures and placed their command post at tier three and the mech factories at tier two. Given how the Yaelar and Ssath were going at it, Hugh figured both of them were using their resources to replace losses, not to do further upgrades.

You have taken control of a resource gathering station. This station is also equipped with a resource drop-off addon that is now linked to your command post.

With the resource gathering station back in his control, Hugh had a small window of opportunity to save up resources and upgrade while the Ssath were occupied.  His resource collection rate ticked up, allowing him to pump out infantry a bit faster. Time passed as his forces built up. Once he hit the cap of thirty-seven infantry and fifteen construction drones, he started to bank resources to upgrade the command post to tier two.

He resisted the urge to contact Harkona for an update, so he send a section of infantry to recon the control point. As the infantry moved into their position he could see that the Yaelar still had a couple of construction drones watching over the area, but there was no sign of a Ssath recon team, likely all of their troops were engaged with the Yaelar. The AI-controlled forces defending the control point had been reinforced and he could see a pair of machineguns mounted atop the bunker in addition to the infantry milling around inside the structure. Several pairs of defenders were patrolling the trench line, keeping a wary eye on his scouts as well as the Yaelar drones. Hopefully, Harkona wouldn’t have to wait too long before making his move to take control, or his ally may lose too many forces as the defenders slowly reinforced their defenses.

“Hugh, I’m unable to contain the Ssath any longer, my resources are low and the Ssath keep sending small strike teams to hit my command post. I need to pull back what I have to defend it. Are you ready to rejoin the fight?” Harkona asked, the Yaelar sounded stressed, something Hugh hadn’t heard from it before.

“We’re ready, my forces can head out at any time,” Hugh replied. He was at the unit max and had amassed over 200 resources. He couldn’t let the Yaelar command post fall again, even if it meant delaying his tier two command post. Despite being lower tier, thirty-seven infantry mechs were still a force to be reckoned with.

“Captain Tran, lead your troops and assault the Ssath command post again,” Hugh ordered.

“Roger that, we’re on our way,” Tran replied, leading their troops back into the fight.