War Core Wednesday, War Core 3, Chapter 10.

Chapter 10.

With the signal tower complete, Hugh was able to bring Captain Tran up to a full two squads of infantry. At tier zero, his infantry didn’t’ have much in the way of firepower, but unless his opponents had some advantage that he was unaware of, Hugh figured his forces were on par with the enemy. Even if one of the other cores had some extra units at the start or a way to pump out units faster, it was too big a risk to push against one of the enemy cores this early in the fight. Whichever one wasn’t being attacked was sure to exploit the weakness of the other two. Barring an unlikely alliance between the Yaelar and Ssath, Hugh was beginning to believe this would be a long fight, with each core working to gain slight advantages over their foes.

He would like to push all his resources into upgrading his structures until he was able to build main battle mechs, but it would be inviting disaster to not keep a sizeable force of defenders on hand. He would follow a slow and steady plan, upgrading structures as fast as he could, but maxing out his unit count before doing so. Hugh queued up a second signal tower and would then pump out infantry until he reached the cap, though he did add a fourth team of construction drones.

“Captain Tran, send out a section of infantry out to keep tabs on each of our opponents, and a third watching the objective. Anything else we’ll keep at the resource station as a quick reaction team. If the Ssath core is going to try to use their tunneling mechs here, I think it’ll be quite a while before they have the resources and tech to do so. Those giant lizards have to be a higher tier unit,” Hugh ordered.

“Roger that, sir, the only problem we may have is if the enemy makes an effort to focus on the troops keeping tabs on them. A quick strike could nab those mechs before we can send aid. I suppose if they’re doing their job, we’ll see any enemy force buildup before they strike, giving us time to pull back or reinforce,” Tran confirmed. Hugh let him choose and order each section of infantry to their positions. When he was able to upgrade his command post, it might be worth it to have his construction drones work on some fixed defenses as well.

His troops would be spread out, and there was always the risk of having his army defeated in detail by swifter enemy units. He had to be willing to risk some of his infantry if he wanted to have an idea of what each enemy was planning to do. Construction drones could be used as scouts, but a slow, defenseless drone would be too juicy a target to ignore, and the enemy could send a single infantry mech to take one out. It would be a foolish waste of resources. Once he figured out what his enemies were planning, Hugh could gather his army into a more powerful group, leaving only a small screen on the other flanks to keep watch for any shenanigans.

With the natural trickle of resources into his command post along with the ones from the gathering station, it didn’t take Hugh long to max out his forces. He had already built the armory for his barracks, but at level zero, there weren’t any upgrade options. His next step would be to bring the barracks up to level one, but that would require two-hundred resources, but he was sitting at eighty-eight. Captain Tran reshuffled the infantry as the reinforcements came in, going from a section to a full squad on each flank and another one facing the central control point. Any additional infantry he produced would patrol near the resource gathering station. Being in the center of his territory, the resource gathering station would serve as a gathering point for what he was thinking of as his rapid reaction force.

Hugh’s opponents were idle either, each slowly building up larger forces to patrol the no man’s land between each core’s territory. In addition, all of them had forces watching over the control point, but, for now, nobody seemed willing to risk making a play to try and take it. The Ssath did make a couple of abortive attempts to charge his infantry posted on that flank, but they didn’t press the attacks, and other than a few scorched armored bits, neither side took any casualties. Hugh now had four teams of construction drones, two of which he kept at the command post, and two at the resource gathering station where they would wait until they were needed to repair damaged mechs. Eventually, they would be used to build fixed defenses, but he would need a few more upgrades to the command post before that became a viable option.

It didn’t take too long to earn enough resources to bump the barracks up to tier one. Once that was complete, the drones wandered out to upgrade the infantry, bringing the tier zero units up to the newly improved tier-one versions. Visually, they added a few more armored panels to the infantry, courtesy of the assault infantry upgrade choice he had made back at the battle for the Krixnas homeworld. Other changes weren’t visible, but whatever his drones did to the infantry, it granted small improvements to most systems. A tier one infantry mech was still weak, but it was an improvement over what he had. His armory had now unlocked the first upgrade options for Hugh’s infantry, and he considered whether he should go with upgrades now, or save up for the light mech factory.

Armory Upgrades:

1. Basic Targeting Package. This upgrade provides a 10% accuracy bonus and requires 50 resources to unlock. Once unlocked your existing infantry can be retrofitted with the upgrade without additional resource cost and any future units built at the barracks will have the upgrade installed at the time of their construction.

2. Improved Heat Sink. This upgrade provides a 10% rate of fire increase and requires 50 resources to unlock. Once unlocked your existing infantry can be retrofitted with the upgrade without additional resource cost and any future units built at the barracks will have the upgrade installed at the time of their construction.

3. Enhanced armor. This upgrade requires 50 resources to unlock and improves the durability of your infantry mechs by 15%. Due to the additional weight of this upgrade, a 5% mobility penalty will be applied to your infantry. Once unlocked your existing infantry can be retrofitted with the upgrade without additional resource cost and any future units built at the barracks will have the upgrade installed at the time of their construction.

This was sort of his last chance to change up the plan, he could pass on upgrades and stockpile until he had enough for either the next command post tier or the light mech factory, but given the type of battle they were in, fully upgraded units would be a big benefit when he secured the control point. He queued up all three upgrades, unlocking them in order since the last one would hamper movement a bit. That was a pretty big downside to the enhanced armor, but given that at least one of his foes, the Ssath, fielded infantry much faster than his own, a five percent drop in movement speed wasn’t to make much of a difference, but a fifteen percent durability upgrade just might decide the battle.

The sound of plasma fire drew his attention to the control point, the Yaelar were making their move. Several squads of their werewolf-like infantry charged toward the control point, their shoulder-mounted weapons banging out shots as they ran. While they stood upright when walking, the Yaelar ran on all fours like an animal. Given the speed he was clocking them at, they were also going to be much faster than his infantry, but he couldn’t tell who would win out in a race between them and the Ssath. Return fire from inside the bunker lashed out, peppering the attackers. Three of the Yaelar were cut down before they entered the cover of the trench.

Unoccupied by any defenders, the trench line gave the Yaelar complete cover from the defenders’ fire. Who exactly these defenders were was a mystery, as all of them seemed to be hunkered down deep inside the bunker. The trench line connected to the bunker at two points, allowing defenders to sally forth with cover. Instead of providing cover for the defenders, it provided cover for the attackers, a design flaw in Hugh’s opinion.

“Captain, thin our forces that are facing the Yaelar and move them, along with the reaction team at the resource station, toward the control point,” Hugh ordered. With this many Yaelar, he wasn’t too scared of an attack on that front, and he wanted to mass some force on the control point in case an opportunity arose for him to snag it with minimal losses.

“I’m on it, sir. Those Yaelar seem to know their stuff,” Tran said. He was right, the Yaelar infantry looked like monsters, but they moved like soldiers.

Solid metal doors covered the entrance to the bunker, but that didn’t stop teams of four Yaelar from firing into and clawing at each of the doors. The other troops stayed back, safely hidden in the trenches. While it looked solid enough, the door was being worn away quickly, and just as the Yaelar breached the opening, a firing port opened and the wide barrel of a weapon was shoved out. Flames washed out from the mystery weapon, quickly melting through the Yaelar attackers.

“They’re taking casualties, If they fail on their attack, it might be time for us to make a go at the control point. They’ll have stripped away any defenders, and while they’ll likely respawn, it’ll take some time,” Hugh said.

“I agree, but let’s see if the Ssath make a move first,” Tran offered.

“Sir, Yaelar infantry are retreating from the border, they’re running for home,” one of the soldiers covering that sector announced. Hugh shifted his vision over, watching the five Yaelar that had been patrolling near Hugh’s troops charge off toward their command post.

“Move out and tail them, see what’s happening there. I’m willing to bet the Ssath are taking a crack at their command post while a good chunk of the Yaelar forces are taking the control point,” Hugh ordered. The section of five mechs guarding that part of the border moved out but was quickly left behind by the faster Yaelar infantry. At tier one, his mechs moved at the pace of a leisurely walk. Back on the other border, the Ssath troops there were keeping a low profile, but it didn’t look like they had pulled any of them back from the line.

“They’re breaking into the bunker,” Tran announced. Back at the control point, Yaelar infantry had battered down one of the doors and were pouring into the location. Several more charred and partially melted Yaelar infantry indicated that they hadn’t had that easy of a time. Just over a dozen made it inside. The sound of metal clanging and the sharp crack of plasma weapons were heard, but after a brief moment, the control point was still and quiet.

They Yaelar Confederacy has begun the capture process for this control point. While a core holds this control point, any resources generated by their command post and resource gathering station will be distributed to the remaining combatants. Once the control point is captured, it will automatically repair any damage and replace any defenders that have been lost. If all the repairs and losses are completed and the control point still remains in the claws of a core, additional defenses and defenders will be created.

It was an interesting mechanic for this type of battle. As long as you held the control point, you’d have no income to speak of, instead, you’d be bolstering your opponent’s forces, giving them the resources that they would need to eventually overrun you. At the same time that the enemy was stealing your income, the system would be rebuilding and improving the automated defenses to help you hold the control point. A new indicator popped up in the corner of Hugh’s vision, showing the capture progress. They were at five percent and it was climbing one percent every few seconds.

“We’ve got eyes on the Yaelar command post, the Ssath are engaging the garrison troops there, no sign of the infantry we were following, though,” the sergeant leading the detail announced. Hugh could see two squads of Ssath clawing through the AI-controlled garrison units. Just like his defensive garrison, the AI-controlled Yaelar troops weren’t very good, but the Ssath weren’t having things all go their way, and Hugh could see at least a few of the Ssath infantry had fallen to the defenders. The five Yaelar that had been guarding the border against Hugh’s forces were entering the fight, but even with their assistance, the Yaelar were outnumbered.

“Contact! Enemy all around, we need…” the soldier called out before his comms were cut off as his mech was destroyed. Appearing from nowhere, Yaelar infantry had snuck up directly behind each of his infantry units watching the battle between the Ssath and Yaelar. The stealthy units only became visible when their claws were already tearing into the soldiers. In a matter of seconds, all five of his infantry were down and the Yaelar began to shimmer again before, once more, becoming invisible.

“They have stealth units. when did that become a thing?” One of Tran’s soldiers asked loudly over the unit comm.

“Lock it up, soldier, keep the channel clear,” Tran growled at the soldier. “I did notice that the stealthed Yaelar infantry look quite a bit different than the regular units,” Tran offered. He was right, Hugh pulled up the video of the attack, and the stealthy Yaelar were smaller than their kin, lacking the shoulder-mounted ranged weapon that the others had. They also had what looked like a metallic rucksack attachment on the backs of their mechs. As they came out of stealth and just before they returned, Hugh could see the attachment give off sparks and crackles of electricity.

“There’s likely only a few of the stealth units, but keep a sharp lookout just in case,” Hugh ordered. He wanted to get a look at the fight brewing at the Yaelar command post, so he assigned a couple of drones to the task. Hopefully, both of his foes would be too busy tearing each other apart to go after a drone that would normally be the easy prey.

“Sir, my troops are gathered, do you want to make a play for the control point before the Yaelar take it?” Tran asked. Hugh looked over to see the troops he had gathered, twenty-one in total, were ready to roll. The Yaelar had rushed about a dozen infantry inside the control point, and it had sounded like there had been at least a brief fight inside that might have whittled them down some more. Did he risk going on the offensive, or would doing that just be inviting an attack from the Ssath?