War Core Wednesday! War Core 3, Chapter 11.

Chapter 11.

“Make your move, Captain Tran, the Yaelar assault team is weakened and most of the Ssath forces are attacking the Yaelar command post,” Hugh ordered. It might be a mistake to assault the control point this early in the fight, but the opportunity was there to take it over with minimal losses. With both his foes weakened from the fighting, he just might be able to hold it for long enough to win the battle.

“Roger that, moving in,” Tran replied. His infantry walked into the open, Hugh willing them to move faster as they slowly closed in on the control point’s trench line. The light crack of pistol-caliber weapons was heard as some of the Yaelar inside the bunker opened up on his mechs. Their fire was inaccurate, as was the return fire from Hugh’s infantry. As they neared the trench line, a few hits were scored, but nothing vital was struck and his infantry began to drop down inside the trench line to approach the control point bunker.

Using the same cover that the Yaelar had used in their approach, Tran divided his team to approach the bunker from both sides at the same time. As the command was given, his troops moved toward the bunker entrances, guns blazing. Return fire was received, but Hugh’s forces had the firepower advantage and with the doors having been destroyed by the Yaelar, there was little cover for the defenders. Focusing his feed onto the lead units, Hugh could see they had cut down three or four defenders, the others moving further back into the bunker.

The bunker itself was divided into three large compartments, one at each doorway and a central compartment sealed off by smaller metal hatches. Gun ports littered the outer wall, allowing a sizeable number of defenders to fire on any attackers. Slightly elevated, the bunker gave clear lines of sight over the heads of any units defending the trench line and despite the entry doors being obvious weak points, the bunker was fairly well designed. Debris littered the floor, the remains of the automated defenders and the Yaelar that fell in the initial assault into the bunker.

Hugh got his first good looks at the automated defenders and wasn’t all that impressed with what he saw. Walking on four metal legs, the mechs had a featureless torso with two arms mounted on it. One arm was essentially a plasma rifle, complete with a bayonet attached to it and the other arm had several tools protruding at odd angles, making Hugh believe these served a dual purpose. Further examination was halted as Tran’s soldiers breached the doors to the central chamber, pouring fire in as they assaulted the last of the Yaelar inside. Five Yaelar had sealed themselves into the central chamber, and they didn’t hesitate to charge into the plasma fire to get their teeth and claws on the human infantry mechs.

“Get it off me!” One of the soldiers shouted over comms as a werewolf mech tore into him. Other soldiers shot the attacker to pieces, but not before it had claimed its intended victim. Outnumbered over two to one, the Yaelar went down quick, but they did take five of Hugh’s mechs with them. As the last Yaelar fell, a system prompt confirmed he was gaining control of the facility.

The Human core currently occupies the control point. As the second core to occupy the point, the human core must first wait for the Yaelar core’s progress to be removed before their capture process can begin.

Sadly, the process would take longer for him than it would have taken for the Yaelar. The control bar still showed the enemy had 78% control and it was dropping by a percentage point per second. Once it dropped to zero, then Hugh would begin to gain control. When he completed his control of the point, income would drop to zero, so he had to work fast. Even with their depleted forces, the Ssath would quickly overrun his command post without Hugh having the resources to reinforce the defenders and replace his losses. He needed to take a risk to try and end this thing early.

“Captain Tran, I’m going to push everything we have into the control point. With the Yaelar and the Ssath tearing each other apart, we just might have enough time to win this before they can mass enough forces to push us out,” Hugh ordered.

“A risky call, sir, wouldn’t it be better to defend the command post, let the others wear themselves down with fighting for control?” Tran offered.

“Maybe, but we have the opportunity to end this now. I’m sending you everything I can. Once the capture process is done, we’ll have some automated defenders to help out, but until then, it’ll just be the forces you have on hand,” Hugh said.

“Very well, sir, we’ll hold this bunker,” Tran replied. Before he could second guess himself, Hugh ordered the mechs covering the Ssath sector over to the bunker as well as both squads of construction drones that were at the resource gathering station. Replacements for his losses were already starting to walk out of the barracks, and he set the rally point for them to be at the control point. It was a long walk, but if the other two cores could be kept occupied for a while, he should have a secure position to fight from. With all his infantry defending the control point and command post, the construction drones would have to be his eyes and ears. Hugh granted access to the drone feed to all his soldiers, letting them know to call out if they saw anything.

The last of the upgrades for his tier-one infantry were completed in the armory and the construction drones he had sent to the bunker would upgrade the troops once they arrived there. Replacements currently being built would already have the upgrades installed. His resources were doing fine, and Hugh decided that he would leave behind a section of infantry to help hold the command post. It would dilute the forces holding the control point, but in return, it would prevent a single squad of enemy mechs from easily destroying the place. This way, they’d have to commit a sizeable force to the assault, which would delay any assault on the control point.

The Yaelar command post has been destroyed. In 5 minutes, the command post and other structures will be respawned and the Yaelar 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.

So much for the Yaelar and the Ssath keeping each other busy, at least for the next fifteen minutes. It did look like the GCA would penalize you for having your base destroyed multiple times. The initial penalty was bad enough, and while they waited for their structures to be rebuilt, the other cores would be building and upgrading further. It didn’t mention resource penalties, so Hugh figured that the Yaelar would continue to receive the normal resource trickle, even while he sat there doing nothing. It made sense, otherwise, the core controlling the destroyed command post would be too far behind his foes, and that wouldn’t make for good entertainment for their GCA overlords.

The pair of construction drones he had sent to scout out the Yaelar reached the command post ruins. A brightly designated protected area showed in their interface, an obvious warning of how close they could approach. Hugh left a drone there to watch and see how the rebuilding process happened, making sure to keep well away from the penalty zone. The other drone was sent to the Yaelar resource gathering station, curious to see what was happening there. As he suspected, a section of Ssath infantry held the gathering station. It would give the Ssath a small edge in resource production, but holding the station should tie up a few units that would otherwise be coming at him.

With the Yaelar out of the picture, it wouldn’t be long before the Ssath made a move on Hugh’s command post. Given the piles of debris and destroyed mechs scattered around the Yaelar base, the Ssath had taken a beating during the fight, which meant Hugh would have at least a little time before they built up a large enough assault force. Tran was up to twenty-three mechs in the control point and several more on the way. He would cap out at thirty-one before Hugh reached the unit cap and they held a section of five mechs back to reinforce the command post. Without much for them to do, Hugh scrapped five of the construction drones patrolling the command post, which gave him enough unit points for one more infantry mech.

The squad of Ssath mechs that had been screening the border between the two cores approached the command post. With Hugh’s troops all at the control point or the command center, his enemy had free reign to move in his territory. Between the ones watching over his command post and scout teams at the control point, the Ssath core in command of this battle must have a pretty good idea of what Hugh was trying to do. A few more Ssath mechs reinforced the group watching his base, and when their numbers hit fifteen, they moved to occupy Hugh’s resource gathering station.

You have lost control of the resource gathering station near your command post, it is now under the control of the Ssath.

Their move also cut off the last of the reinforcements heading toward Tran. With the ones on the way that were already safely past the gathering station, Tran would have a total of twenty-seven defenders. The rest of Hugh’s infantry would stay behind and help defend the command post. It would make the control point weaker, but it would also require a larger Ssath force to take out his command post. How fast could the Ssath produce units? Odds were that the enemy core had quite an upgrade advantage given how much longer he had been fighting than Hugh.

You have completed the takeover of the control point. Progress will now be made toward the final goal of this battle. A total of 5000 control points are required to emerge victorious in this conflict. If the control point changes hands, any points that you have already accumulated will remain in your account.

A force of 10 automated defenders will now be produced. They will begin repairs and assist in the defense of the bunker itself. Once their work is complete, the defenders will begin to upgrade the defenses as well as slowly expand the number of defenders available to you.

The automated defenders cannot be directly controlled by your core but will do their best to avoid damaging or hampering any units you have assisting in the defense of the control point. Should another core wrest control from you, the defenders will revert to their starting number of 10, but any additional defensive structures they have created will remain in operation.

All resources gained from your command post are now being evenly divided between your opponents. Your existing resource pool will also slowly be reallocated to the other cores involved in the conflict.

Inside the central compartment of the bunker, a section of the floor became highlighted. The highlighted area was a lift that began to descend, and when it returned, the first automated defender was standing on it. It scanned the area around the bunker and began to gather up the debris from the earlier fight. Similar to how the resource gathering stations worked, the defender piled up the debris on the lift it had used to enter the bunker. Once enough debris was gathered, the lift was lowered. Hugh had a feeling it was operating on a resource point system, but he wasn’t given any information on how fast those resources were building up or how long it would be before more defenders emerged.

“Captain, what’s your take on how to deploy our forces?” Hugh asked.

“From what we saw before, these automated defenders aren’t that effective, I say we keep a squad inside the bunker where we can put our superior ranged firepower to work and then position the rest of our troops around the trench line. It’s a lot of real estate to cover, but it’s a short enough line that I can shift troops as needed,” Tran said.

“Good enough for me, make it happen. I’m sure the Ssath will overrun us at the command center before too long. We don’t have to beat them, just hold them off until we hit the control point goal,” Hugh replied. It seemed the control points accumulated at about one point per second, which meant he had to hold the control point for just under an hour and a half if he wanted to win.

“We have some action over at the Yaelar command post,” one of the soldiers called out. The five-minute timer was almost up, and Hugh got the first look at how the GCA was going to rebuild the command post and other base structures. Light gathered near the ruins of the command post. The glowing debris pulled itself together, reforming into the previous shape it had held.

“Think that’s some kind of nanotech rebuilding that?” Tran asked.

“No idea, but something tells me the GCA has access tech that our scientists can even conceive of. After all, they can restructure an entire world to use for their battlefield playgrounds,” Hugh said. The entire rebuilding process took less than twenty seconds, completing just when the timer counted down the last second. The barracks and command post came to life, and first drones and garrison forces started to be produced. The Yaelar drones were similar to his, and it appeared the Yaelar infantry mechs didn’t have to do double duty as builders and combat units, unlike some of the foes he had faced. Given that his drones, those of the Yaelar, and the ones doing double duty as defenders of the control point all looked similar, it must have been a generic design that the GCA assigned to all the species that didn’t have a naturally occurring hybrid unit.

The protected area around the Yaelar base flashed once, a final warning to stay back until the protection time was completed. More and more units were being produced, but the Ssath had the resource advantage, controlling all three gathering stations. If Hugh could hold out until the protection timer on the Yaelar base ran down, maybe his opponents would go at each other once again, buying him precious time.

He was down to 133 resources and that number ticked down by two every second, his last reserves being bled away to fund the enemy. At least the final infantry mechs were finishing up assembly so even when he dropped to zero resources, there wasn’t much he could spend it on until he took some casualties. Given the increasing number of Ssath mechs gathering around his command post, it didn’t appear that he would have to wait very long for those casualties to be inflicted.