War Core Wednesday! War Core 3, Chapter 13.

Chapter 13.

“There are five minutes remaining, you may want to start your forces on their journey, it will take time to approach the Ssath command post,” Harkona said.

“Okay, we’re on our way,” Hugh replied. He had pushed a link to the conversation out to Captain Tran and was a bit worried over what the Infantry commander would think of his decision.

“Captain, I assume you heard all that?” Hugh asked.

“Roger that sir, I’m not sure we’re doing the right thing by helping the Yaelar to win, but if we don’t, the Ssath are going to crush us both. We’ve been through a lot together, sir, so I’ll accept your judgment and push the attack as best I can. I just hope the Yaelar aren’t playing us for a fool,” Tran said.

“I hope so too, but even if the Yaelar and scamming us, having them win is preferable to letting the Ssath have a shorter path toward earth,” Hugh replied.

“The decision’s made, sir, now it’s time to execute, we’re moving out,” Tran said. The infantry inside the control point began to file out of the trench line and bunker. There were only twenty-seven of them, but the only thing in their way was the observation team left behind by the Ssath. Having stripped most of their forces to continue the siege on the Yaelar command post, the Ssath had only left a pair of infantry mechs to observe the control point.

As his infantry was about to enter weapons range, a blur appeared behind one of the Ssath infantry. Metal claws raked across the armored hide of the Ssath and the werewolf-like snout of Yaelar stealth mech took a chunk out of its neck, causing sparks to shoot from the wound. It appeared the Yaelar had also left on observer behind and were willing to sacrifice it to help out Hugh’s advance on the Ssath command post. After its initial attack, the Yaelar didn’t fare too well. It had damaged one Ssath mech, but the other wasted no time and leaped onto the Yaelar unit, claws and teeth grinding away.

It was a short but brutal fight, and Hugh was surprised and the viciousness of his opponents. These were beings that liked to get up close and personal in a fight, despite having the tech to do otherwise. Teeth and claws didn’t matter much when you were faced with over twenty plasma rifles pointed at you from the optimal firing range. The Yaelar sacrifice had bought his troops the time to close the distance and the first volley of shots cut down the pair of Ssath mechs. Better to kill them here while they were on their own than to let them fall back to the command post and reinforce whatever was waiting for him there.

Despite them being opponents, Harkona was somehow able to share his feed with Hugh. He split his attention between his forces approaching the Ssath command post and the Yaelar positioning his troops. The barracks of the Yaelar command post was still churning out units, but given the number of mechs already on the ground, Harkona had to be close to the unit cap unless he had some form of a signal tower that was upgraded over what Hugh could build.

Shortly before the protection zone expired, the barracks stopped producing units, leaving Harkona with thirty-three infantry mechs. Ten more of the defensive garrison troops patrolled near the command post and Hugh suspected there were at least a few of the stealthy units lurking around the area, ready to ambush the Ssath when they advanced.

To counter Harkona, the Ssath had twenty-nine infantry mechs and four light mechs. Another Ssath light mech and a pair of infantry were seen approaching in the distance as reinforcements made the long march from their command post toward the Yaelar base. Harkona had the numerical advantage, barely, but the Ssath had the qualitative advantage. Further enemy reinforcements were likely to split, those closest to the Yaelar base would continue toward that target, while any closer to their own command post would turn around to try and stop Hugh’s attack.

The protective barrier went down and both sides sprang into action. Plasma fire arced out, landing hits, but both opponents seemed to want to engage in melee. It was quite the sight, giant mechanical werewolves vs. mech dinos weren’t something you saw every day. Before the two sides clashed in melee, the Ssath had scored ten kills to the Yaelar’s six, the qualitative advantage of the Ssath making itself known. The defensive garrison troops stayed back, the Ssath not yet close enough to trigger their attack protocol. With the Ssath having a ranged advantage due to their light mechs, leaving the Yaelar core had no choice but to charge in or risk his units getting picked off one by one.

Both sides were vicious; claws and teeth tore apart the lightly armored mechs of both sides. Casualties mounted and when it looked like the Ssath were about to overcome the remaining Yaelar units, several stealthed units blinked into view, launching deadly surprise attacks on the nearest Ssath. The initial strike knocked out a light mech and four infantry, swinging the momentum in Harkona’s favor. Hugh wasn’t able to continue his observation of the fight, as his units were finally in sight of the Ssath command post.

“Target in sight, sir, looks like a defensive garrison of twenty and a half dozen regular infantry. They also have a pair of light mechs supporting them,” Tran called out. Hugh could see they were expecting him, and in the distance, a single infantry mech was moving as fast as it could to join the defense, but the fight should be over one way or another before it arrived. Construction drones also formed up, a score of the bots joined the defenders. They were far weaker than an infantry mech, but the small laser weapon they mounted could do damage over time, especially considering how many there were.

“As soon as you’re at maximum range, light them up. I’ll drop the hate as well,” Hugh ordered, preparing his Drop Beacon of the Vanquished. He targeted a light mech that was surrounded by four of the construction drones. If he got lucky and the Ssath combat pod operators were on their toes, the drop pod would crush them even before its deadly cargo was unloaded.

The light mechs opened fire first, despite the human ranged advantage, the light mech’s heavier caliber guns just had a longer range than the rifles his units carried. The first shots missed, but their follow-up round struck true, shattering two of his infantry. Hugh’s troops returned fire, Captain Tran and his boys were good at this, juking their mechs to throw off the incoming fire while hurling accurate rounds downrange. The Ssath didn’t seem as keen on dodging the incoming fire, unwilling to give the humans a clear shot at the command post.

A flaming streak appeared over the battlefield; his drop pod was on its way. Sadly, the Ssath had no trouble estimating its landing spot, moving the troops that Hugh had targeted away to avoid it. The ground shook as his drop pod slammed down. The panels blew out and Hugh watched as Krixnas infantry poured out. Twelve of the mechs charged out, the AI-controlled units targeting the nearest Ssath. Laser tentacles fired, inaccurate as always, but the sudden presence of a new enemy in their midst threw the Ssath commander off for a few critical seconds.

The Ssath fire diluted as several of the infantry charged to engage the Krixnas in melee while others seemed torn as to which target to attack first. Defensive garrison units defaulted to their programming, targeting the closest targets first, the Krixnas. Hugh’s troops continued to advance nearly unopposed and scored hits as the distance closed. Tran had ordered them to concentrate fire on the light mechs first and both were soon burned down by the volume of fire heading their way.

“Where did these come from!” One of the soldiers shouted over comms, breaking comms discipline. A small swarm of the tiny dino’s that the Ssath sometimes used as artillery ammunition dropped on top of the advancing infantry. It looked like the Ssath commander had a few tricks up his sleeve, and access to abilities like Hugh’s Drop Beacon of the Vanquished.

“Lock it up, soldier, we know how to deal with this. Pest control mode boys,” Tran ordered. They had trained for this, and despite the initial surprise, Soldiers ignored the small mechs tearing into their mechs and instead concentrated on lining up clear shots on the enemy swarming over their comrades. They had learned it was too hard to shoot the things off your own mech, so the way to do it was to trust in the accuracy of your battle buddies. Shots rang out and tiny dino’s started to drop. There had been a score of the mechs, but a single shot almost anywhere would take them out easily.

The sneak attack by the tiny mechs caused few casualties, but it did allow the Ssath to fight off the Krixnas from the drop pod. Even AI-controlled, the Krixnas were deadly up close, their tentacles charging with plasma and melting through the Ssath armor easily. Since the pod-operated Ssath were the most aggressive, they also took the most casualties from the attack, and by the time the last Krixnas was down, the Ssath only had two pod-operated mechs remaining and about fifteen of the garrison troops along with a smattering of drones.

Tran held the infantry back, unwilling to engage in melee and happy to exploit the advantage that he now had over his enemy, the human mechs outshooting the Ssath, despite being a tier lower in quality. The final Ssath-controlled mechs fell and the others were cut down soon after. It wasn’t without casualties, and by the time the last construction drone and garrison mech were destroyed, Tran’s force was down to twelve infantry.

Pairs of mechs positioned themselves around the enemy structures, ready to engage any new mechs being produced while at the same time, slamming round after round into the enemy command post. Hugh knew all too well the pain and frustration involved in being on the receiving end of such an attack and held out hope that the pain would distract the Ssath commander. A light mech emerged from the factory, but concentrated fire from his mechs tore it apart before it could engage.  The outer wall to the Ssath command post went down and a team of infantry marched inside, firing into the critical machinery.

Hugh watched the enemy structure health drop, the GCA indicator showing it was at 30% and dropping a few percent every second or two. Infantry mechs rolled off the line, but the troops still outside were ready for them, destroying the enemy before they could interfere with the destruction. The lone Ssath mech that Hugh had thought was too far away to make it to the battle showed up, but it didn’t fare too well on its own.

The Ssath command post has been destroyed. In 5 minutes, the command post and other structures will be respawned and the Ssath will be given a protected area to recover in for 10 minutes. Any hostile forces entering the designated protected area will shut down and their operators will face a severe survivability penalty. Any subsequent destruction of the command post will result in an increased delay for reconstruction as well as a shortened protection duration.

The welcome prompt appeared as the command post collapsed in on itself. When that happened, the other structures also collapsed, and the red protected area began to flash. Hugh’s troops were apparently given some leeway to get out of the area before the penalty went into effect. They had barely enough time to make it outside the danger zone, which the survivors had no trouble doing. Unfortunately, the collapsing command post had also come down on two of his infantry, leaving Hugh with only ten infantry.

“Hugh, I have defeated the attack on my command post, and I think I can hold out against what’s left of the Ssath. As soon as I have replaced my losses I’ll send units to support you in containing the Ssath,” Harkona said.

“That would help, I’m down to ten mechs and most of those are damaged,” They had a total of fifteen minutes before the Ssath would emerge from the protected zone. After five minutes they would have their buildings reconstructed and be allowed to start producing units. Having held most of the resource gathering stations, Hugh was willing to bet that the Ssath core had more than enough resources to rebuild his forces. They would be more numerous than the combined Yaelar and human force, could they hold the Ssath off long enough for Harkona to gather the victory points necessary to win the fight?