War Core Wednesday, War Core 3, Chapter 4.

Chapter 4.

“I’ll send you whatever new units I produce. Once they spot us and realize how many troops we’ve committed to the attack, they’ll probably respond by trying to take out one of our lightly defended command posts,” Hugh told Maddison. Things could devolve into an odd situation that happened in some of the games where the fight devolved into a race to destroy the enemy’s structures before your own were taken out. Hugh set the rally point for his forces at Maddison’s command post, queuing up both infantry and light mechs. He only had about thirty resources but as more trickled in, he would continue to push troops to the rally point while repositioning some of his construction drones to keep an eye out for any hidden forces that might be making a play for his base.

“Thanks, I’ll try to go full defense, for now, let’s see if they push or if they’re happy with capturing the resource gathering station,” Maddison replied.

Her forces trying to counterattack the enemy at the resource station were almost completely wiped out, a single light mech was limping back and would go down soon to the squad of infantry mechs stalking it. Four of her infantry mechs would make it out, using their superior speed to race past the mass of the enemy. They took some damage as they retreated, the accurate human ranged weapons pinging rounds off the lightly armored Ssath units, but the rapid evasive maneuvers of the agile mechs meant that many of the shots aimed at them missed.

They had used up most of their early resources to build up the assault force that was even now stalking toward Javier’s command post. So far they hadn’t been spotted, but that could change at any moment. Maddison kept a construction drone near the resource gathering station, keeping an eye on the enemy force, who, thankfully, seemed to content to just defend their prize. Hugh counted up the enemy force, able to separate the units of the two cores based on the minor differences in design as well as the unit patches painted on each unit.

Enemy Combat Units:

Canadian War Core.

Infantry mechs: 19.

Light mechs: 4.

Mexican War Core.

Infantry mechs: 22.

Light mechs: 7.

The enemy team had taken a few casualties between battling the AI defenders and pushing back Maddison’s limited counterattack, but the combined force was still powerful enough to possibly destroy Maddison’s command post if they attacked immediately. Every minute they delayed meant that another mech stepped off the assembly line to reinforce her defense. As it stood, she had five infantry mechs to support the thirty defensive garrison forces. It wasn’t much, and the defensive garrison troops weren’t that effective since they were controlled by AI, not actual soldiers. The low wall around the base would provide some cover and keep the units alive a bit longer, not to mention that Hugh’s reinforcements would also get there eventually.

“Major Logan, the enemy has spotted us, just a single scout for now,” Sergeant Hallan advised. Shifting his viewpoint, Hugh could see a solitary construction drone shadowing his forces, which had covered about half the distance to the Mexican command post. Now that they had been spotted, the sergeant had one of the light mech’s charge forward at maximum speed, moving to get eyes on the command post and see what kind of defenses they had in place. Another light mech went after the construction drone scouting them, the Ssath unit quickly overtaking the much slower drone and blasting it into scrap.

“And, there goes the enemy assault force, at least the Mexican units,” Maddison said. Back at the resource gathering station, the Canadian units stayed behind to protect the station while the other units moved back toward Javier’s command post.

“Exactly what we hoped for, and given the number of units we’ve seen so far, I don’t think that Javier will have enough forces at his command post to hold back our attack,” Hugh said. There was little to do now but watch and wait to see how the battle played out, everything was in the hands of the troops controlling their units.

“Enemy command post in sight. It looks like limited forces other than the defensive garrison, moving to engage,” Sergeant Hallan reported. Hugh watched the attacking force break up into smaller groups, with Maddison’s troops circling to attack from the west while Hugh’s units assaulted from the south. Sergeant Hallan and Maddison’s liaison, whose name he hadn’t learned yet, worked well together, timing their approach to enter the enemy range at the same time.

Javier had built a light mech and a pair of infantry mechs to help the thirty defensive garrison troops. Another infantry mech walked from the factory as the attack slammed home. Plasma fire was exchanged at long range, and despite having the numerical advantage, Hugh’s troops suffered more than the enemy, reinforcing his belief that the simulation tuned down the accuracy of the Ssath mechs too much. Most of the defensive garrison was facing his attack, with only a half dozen moving to fire on Maddison’s units. Javier must have realized the AI was doing stupid things and shifted all his pod-controlled units to reinforce the troops facing Maddison. As the human-controlled units shifted fire, Hugh’s troops had a brief reprieve, only facing the relatively inaccurate fire of the defensive garrison.

Hugh had lost a light mech and a half dozen infantry by the time they neared the low wall protecting the enemy base. His units had little trouble leaping over the wall except for a couple of infantry mechs that managed to clip the top of the wall on their jump and fell face-first on the other side. Real Ssath wouldn’t have that trouble and Hugh chalked it up to inexperienced and overexcited troops. His troops were now among the enemy forces, in melee range where the Ssath units shined.

Maddison’s forces were also crossing the wall, the enemy pod-controlled units pulling back to the command post while they kept up a withering fire. It didn’t take long to hack and tear apart the defensive garrison units, some of his troops once again began to growl and hiss, eliciting a sharp rebuke from Sergeant Hallan who reminded them that this wasn’t a game. Hugh and Maddison had a private laugh, to them, it was a game. A good enough simulation, but not the real thing. Still, he said nothing as the sergeant was right, these troops had to take it seriously if they wanted to be as ready as possible for the inevitable Ssath invasion. They had years to prepare, but would that be enough?

The last of the defenders fell, and the surviving assault force began to fire and claw at the command post, halting their attack whenever a new defender was built at one of the factories. Only one enemy unit could be built at a time and the combined firepower of the surviving attackers destroyed them before most could even return fire. It didn’t take long for the command post to fall.

The command post for the war core known as Javier Parejo has been destroyed. His units will now revert to AI control and attack toward the nearest enemy command post. Your units may now claim this command post location which has become an enhanced resource gathering station. An enhanced resource station also functions as a drop-off point for resource crates and salvage.

The war core known as Maddison has claimed the enhanced resource gathering station.

“Hey, why do you get the station?” Hugh complained.

“Ha, the speed of youth wins again!” Maddison exclaimed.

“Fine, that just means you’re going to have to shoulder most of the heavy lifting for the rest of the battle. The Canadian core is no joke and I’m sure he’s already turning his base into a deathtrap for any attackers,” Hugh replied.

“Your right, and despite being angry at me for ninja looting the enhanced resource station, can you keep your defenders coming? Javier’s units may just be AI-controlled now, but there’s going to be a lot of them heading toward my command post. Thankfully, the Canadian core seems to be content with pulling his troops back,” Maddison said.

Javier’s forces had been moving to save their command post but hadn’t made it that far before it was destroyed. The troops were now a disorganized gaggle, turning toward Maddison’s command post, which was still the closer of the two. Javier only had twenty-two infantry and seven light mechs, but other than the defensive garrison troops Maddison had, there wasn’t that much for her to defend with.

“I’ll leave the ones already heading there to help out. I have a light mech and three infantry will make it before the attackers arrive, which should give you more than enough to hold back an AI force. The rest of my troops are going to capture the other resource gathering station before you steal that too,” Hugh told her, moving the survivors of his attack force toward the northern resource gathering station where, surprisingly, a fight was already brewing.

It looked like the Mexican, and probably also the Canadian core had left some units behind to keep an eye on the critical location. A section of five infantry mechs was walking in a straight line toward Hugh’s command post, their path taking them through the middle of the neutral defenders. The defenders had been left alone long enough to build their numbers up from the original five units to nine. With simple AI’s guiding them both, Javier’s mechs were cut down, while taking four of the defenders with them, making Hugh’s job that much easier as his units began to close in.

He had eleven infantry and two light mechs left in his assault force after the battle for the command post. A single infantry mech had one of its legs shot off in the attack, and it wasn’t going anywhere until a drone made it there to repair it. Maddison said she would take care of it, she already had six drones moving toward her new acquisition so she could begin hauling in all the salvage leftover from the battle. All of a sudden, the simulation paused.

“The simulation is on hold. The Canadian and Mexican core have filed a dispute, claiming the two American cores were using hacks or exploits in the battle. Hang on while we view the replay,” one of the techs said over the open comms channel.

“Hey, that was legit, it’s not our fault if you guys are lazy and left the teleport station from that map active. If you didn’t want us to use it, you should have cut it out of the scenario,” Maddison complained.

“How did you even know it existed unless you had some kind of cheat or someone feeding you information,” Javier accused.

“There wasn’t any subterfuge going on, the map used for this scenario is a well-known gaming map, and Maddison, who is a pro gamer, knew about it as soon as she realized the map in our simulation was matching the game map. We did exploit knowledge your team didn’t have, but won’t the Ssath do the same if given the opportunity? With how long they’ve been fighting, it stands to reason that they will have more than a few tricks we don’t know about,” Hugh argued.

“Hang on everyone, we’ll have a decision in a minute,” the tech said, trying to keep everyone quiet while they figured out what to do.

“Hold up, I agree with Hugh, we’ll let things stand as they are. I don’t mind trying my hand at a one vs. two fight. My defenses will grind them up and spit them out,” the Canadian core offered.

“Fine, if you’re good with it, I’ll go along with you George,” Javier replied. Hugh could tell he was still a bit upset but was being a good sport.

“Okay, that works for us, and after the battle, I’ll be contacting you to review our other simulation maps, Maddison. We want to clear out any gamer advantages in future fights, and maybe even create a few surprises that nobody knows about,” the tech advised.

“Cool, that sounds like fun,” Maddison replied.

“Great, but you can’t reveal what you’ve found, even to Hugh,” the tech advised.

“Not a problem, I can keep a secret, and Hugh wouldn’t let me blab out the secrets even if I tried,” Maddison said.

“Very good, I’ll get things started back up, get ready,” the tech said, starting the countdown.

The battle will resume in 10, 9, 8…

Once the simulation started back up, Hugh got to work. They fended off the remnants of Javier’s troops without taking much damage and Hugh secured the final resource gathering station before Maddison could steal it out from under him. Once they had secured all the critical locations on the map, they began to seal off the Canadian core from any potential resources. Maddison retook the station near her as the pair began to build up their forces while starting research on various upgrades.

George Lucin’s defenses were impressive, his command post was protected by a thick wall complete with automated gun towers. A series of trenches and bunkers zigzagged around the perimeter, and masses of infantry mechs stood ready to repel their attack. The Canadian core had eschewed larger units, preferring to max out his unit points on cheaper infantry. Given that they had good cover to fight from, the infantry was much more effective than they would normally be.

Cut off from any resources other than the natural trickle that his command post provided, the Canadian core was slowly ground down by Hugh and Maddison’s troops. Hugh suffered an embarrassingly high casualty rate, but after each attack, the Canadian core had less and less to work with. Eventually, their fourth attack pushed through the depleted defenses and took out the command post, securing a win for Hugh and Maddison.

You have successfully defeated your foes, stand by for casualty calculations.

Hugh waved away the casualty screen, it wasn’t something he wanted to see, even if he knew it was simulated and not real. It was time to debrief the soldiers participating in the fight and get ready for the next round of simulations. He was a bit bored with the incessant training, but bored and alive wasn’t all that bad as far as Hugh was concerned.