War Core 2, Chapter 49.

Chapter 49.

The drop pod roared down on the indicated area, slamming home to crush and damage several enemy mechs. When the hatches blew off the pod, four of the odd siege spheres rolled out, exteriors already crackling with energy. It wasn’t his first choice for the summoned mechs, but Hugh wasn’t going to complain. The spheres picked up speed, each one unleashing a wave of lightning over the nearby Ssath units. Lighter units like infantry were destroyed outright by the hits, and the larger mechs were merely stunned, which would hopefully buy Mike some more time.

Hugh expected the spheres to charge in and detonate at the nearest threat, but instead, they rolled down the roadway, their lightning weapon slowly recharging. It didn’t take long to realize what their target was, they were heading toward the Ssath avatar, who was moving with a large force to face off against Stephan. With the damage they did in his previous battle, the spheres should put a hurt on the Ssath avatar if they could connect. The nearby Ssath shifted their fire from the command post and onto the spheres, their armor not nearly strong enough to withstand the incoming plasma rounds.

Two spheres were down before the remaining pair went into their frenzy mode, speed spooling up and throwing off the aim of anyone targeting them. A second blast of plasma lightning cleared the way, leaving a few destroyed infantry and some stunned medium mechs in their dust. Hssim turned the giant avatar toward the spheres, pumping out an impressive amount of firepower. Thankfully, Jiro had pulled the avatar’s teeth, destroying the main guns that had been mounted over the avatar’s shoulder. The remaining weapons were still impressive. Twin-mounted 50mm autocannons were placed in a turret on each shoulder and at least eight machinegun caliber weapons were spread around its body. Add to that the powerful melee weapons the Ssath possessed, and the avatar was still a formidable opponent.

The lead sphere wobbled, then exploded under the fire being directed at it, but the final sphere was closing in. A burst of jump jets launched the sphere directly toward the avatar’s chest. It was an ability that Hugh hadn’t seen in his earlier fight with the spheres, the higher level of the battle must have unlocked more of its abilities. Fire tore into the flying sphere, and about fifty yards from its target, the sphere exploded. The avatar caught part of the blast, the force of the explosion dropping its outer shields while the billowing plasma from the explosion wrapped over the enemy mech.

Swinging about frantically, the Ssath avatar strode away from the blast. Hugh hoped that Hssim felt that one, the Ssath was due some payback for eating him back on Harmony Station. The avatar shook off the damage, the mechs near him coming back from the stunning effects of the lightning as they followed their master toward the edge of the fourth ring where Stephan was approaching. While the sphere attack had damaged the outer armor of the avatar and stripped away a pair of machineguns, the Ssath was still very much a threat.

Stephan’s lead units were nearing the fourth ring, the Ssath opening up as they marched to meet them. The human pod operators had an advantage at range, but their line of sight was hampered by the buildings. Ssath used the cover to their advantage, closing in on the German mechs while taking potshots when had an opening. Stephan’s avatar was near the front of the formation, his heavy guns tearing apart any enemy that showed itself. Supported by a platoon of heavy mechs, Stephan altered his course to meet Hssim, whose avatar was tall enough that they could see his head over the top of the structures.

Several squads of Ssath infantry broke from the cover of the buildings, charging toward Stephan and the heavy mechs defending him. The bulk of Stephan’s force continued toward the Krixnas command post, tearing into the Ssath still putting pressure on their ally. Ssath reacted, units counterattacking as they came under fire, but the German’s were out for blood, their mechs danced away from the fire, their operators working in harmony to take down any threat that showed itself. Infantry jumped from the sides of the mechs charging into buildings to clear out Ssath ambush teams that were waiting.

The main event wasn’t the push to relieve Mike, no, the main event as far as Hugh was concerned was the fight just getting underway between the two avatars. Hssim had amassed a small covering force, including a trio of heavy mechs, essentially slightly scaled-down versions of his Godzilla-looking avatar. A half-dozen medium and light mechs were there, as well as a thirty-plus infantry scampering around their feet.

Stephan had his Maus, a platoon of heavy Tiger II mechs, a platoon of medium mechs, and about three squads of infantry clinging to the heavy and medium mechs. Included in the infantry mix was a section of engineers, Hugh could only hope they had something that could deal with the enemy heavy units. Already fire was streaking out between the two groups, any buildings in the way were getting flattened by the heavy guns, while the light mechs and infantry scurried in the rubble taking potshots at each other and firing the occasional anti-armor rockets at the heavier mechs.

The range was down to two-hundred yards when the first big hit was struck. Stephan’s Maus roared with its main gun, the heavy 128mm shell shattering the small charge that the Ssath avatar’s shields had built up since his run-in with the siege spheres. Plates of armor around Hssim’s chest were dented but held against the partially deflected main gun round. A second pair of blows hammered into the Ssath avatar from the guns of the tigers, the sound of their impacts clearly heard over the constant gunfire. This time, the armor started to buckle, small cracks appearing even as the Ssath responded with guns of their own. Hssim, his heavies, and even the medium mechs all concentrated on a single tiger, their blows overloading the shields before detonating the mech in a shower of plasma that damaged anything nearby.

Stephan and his team were going for the kill, though, ignoring the other mechs as they continued their hammering of Hssim’s avatar. Round after round slammed in, one of the Ssath heavy mechs stepped in to help absorb the punishment. The Ssath kept focusing their fire, picking off tigers one by one. It wouldn’t matter if they stripped away all of Stephan’s support troops if he was able to land the killing blow. Hssim proved much more agile than his mech’s size would suggest, using nearby structures and even his troops as cover to protect himself as much as he could. The final tiger went down, but the Ssath avatar was struggling, and Stephan closed in for the final blow.

“Foolish monkey of a human, did you think I would fall so easily. I have been fighting for glory and blood before any of you were even hatched. My victories are countless, and the rewards lavished upon me by the GCA, well, they are just as numerous. Behold the power of Hssim, the supreme Ssath!” Hssim hissed out.

Above the battlefield, glowing objects rained from the sky. At first, Hugh was concerned the Ssath had gone mad and called down another orbital bombardment on them all as a suicidal attempt to take the human cores down with him, but the objects weren’t as large as the orbital shells had been, and when retro-thrusters fired, Hugh knew he was seeing the Ssath equivalent of a drop pod. A quick check showed they were scattered around the battlefield, seemingly at random, but in fact, a pattern was emerging. A dozen pods were dropping around the advancing German army, and another dozen among the defenses Mike was still trying to hold.

A single, larger drop pod streaked directly toward Hssim’s avatar. The pod burst open just above the Ssath and a cloud of concealing smoke covered the enemy mech as clanging sounds were heard. Stephan and the other mechs still with him fired into the smoke, but the cloud possessed some absorption ability, blunting the force of his shells. More lights in the sky appeared, this time there were over twenty, and they were heading toward Hugh’s fifth ring of the city.

“Sir, I’m calculating that two drop pods are moving for each of our strong points and another three will land around the factory. He was out here in the open field between rings four and five, with most of their heavy firepower in the form of the main battle mechs.

“We won’t get there before the pods land, I’ll take half the main battle mechs and head toward the nearest strongpoint, relieve it and then clear the ring going clockwise. Cartwright, you take the other half of the main battle mechs and clear counterclockwise. Light mechs, get into position near the factory, ambush whatever comes out of those drop pods,” Hugh ordered.

As his avatar headed toward the city and the imminent fight, he looked back over to see Stephan’s Maus stagger under a hail of weapons fire as the Ssath avatar stepped from the smoke, guns blazing. It wasn’t a pod full of reinforcements that drooped on top of the Ssath avatar, instead what had dropped was some kind of enormous, armored exoskeleton that had wrapped itself around Hssim. Two new cannons of at least 150mm were mounted over the shoulder as well as a dozen new smaller caliber weapons. The glow of fresh shields shone over the mech as generators mounted on the exoskeleton activated. Additional armor panels slid into place over any damaged sections of the avatar, but they didn’t look nearly as thick as the mech’s other armor. Still, the avatar had gone from imminent destruction to clear advantage in the fight.

“Your toys do not impress me, lizard, Krupp steel will see to them well enough,” Stephan replied, firing his main gun and the coaxial 75mm weapon his avatar mounted. Both shells slammed home, dropping the new shield that the exoskeleton provided. The Maus was being showered with fire, but the thick armor was holding for the moment. Other mechs under Stephan’s command engaged the newly enhanced enemy, their guns pummeling the mech to keep its shields down and dig into the existing and reinforced armor panels. A lucky hit from one of the medium mechs landed on the muzzle of one of the main guns, blowing the weapon from the Ssath avatar in a burst of plasma fire. Watching the hit made Hugh think about old battle footage he had watched where destroyed tanks exploded and the turrets shot off in a ball of flame.

The enhanced Ssath avatar was fast, closing the distance between the two before Stephan’s guns could reload. His machineguns hammered the enemy, but they were like throwing spitballs and despite backpedaling to avoid it, the Ssath reached him, both claws digging in as the chainsaw teeth started to grind their way into the turret of the German avatar. The double thumps of the main gun fired off once more, this time, the round glowing as Stephan used a consumable or some ability Hugh didn’t know about to enhance the round. Unable to elevate the turret with the Ssath hanging onto it, Stephan targeted the right knee, punching through the armor and shredding the mechanical components inside.

Hssim stumbled once before the damaged knee shattered under his weight. The Ssath fell over backward, losing his grip on Stephan who began to maneuver away from the enemy avatar, keenly aware of the additional Ssath closing in to support their leader. He was down to only a handful of supporting units, those soldiers were sniping at the approaching Ssath as they pulled away from this fight to support the forces moving to help out Mike.

As the drop pods landed around Mike and Stephan’s forces, Hugh watched to see what he could expect from the ones about to land on top of his troops. As they hit, the pod doors blasted open, expelling the same diffusing smoke that the other pod. There were no exoskeletons for Hssim’s troops in these pods, instead, they were filled with infantry, infantry more powerful than even the Ssath tier ten units they had been fighting already. Sprinting from the pod, enhanced infantry units opened up with shoulder-mounted heavy machineguns, the rounds tearing into anything waiting to engage them.

Stephan’s soldiers weren’t phased by the attack, they returned fire and hurled grenades at the attackers. The Ssath moved like greased lightning, closing the distance to any nearby mechs and tearing into them with teeth and claws. The German’s didn’t panic, instead, when one of their mechs was overrun, the pod operator would call for fire on his mech, using its destruction to bring down more of the foe. Not slowing their advance, the Germans pushed through the enemy infantry, cutting their way toward Mike who getting overrun with enemy reinforcements.

Hugh couldn’t spare their fight any additional attention, his own battle was kicking off. Approaching the nearest strongpoint, Hugh was glad to see his flak mechs weren’t sitting down on the job and were throwing fire up at the approaching drop pods. Unfortunately, the drop pods were heavily armored and shielded, landing too quickly for the 40mm guns on the flak mechs to punch through before they disgorged their passengers.

“Hold fire, wait for them to exit the pod and we’ll hit them all at once,” Hugh ordered to the platoon of main battle mechs supporting him. As expected, the Ssath streamed out, guns blazing. Unfortunately for them, they were caught not just by the fire pouring from the strongpoint, but also from the heavy guns of Hugh’s force. A single volley left half the enhanced Ssath infantry broken, but the others continued their assault, heedless of the losses they were taking. Once they neared the strongpoint, the minefields kicked in, trapping and blasting apart the attackers while the strongpoint defenders picked off any that tried to escape.

“Sir, do you want us to hold here?” The soldier in charge of the strongpoint asked.

“Yes, for now, be ready to move, though, we may need you to help out one of the other strongpoints,” Hugh ordered. Each strongpoint they freed up would give him additional soldiers to meet the main Ssath attack that was sure to come if Stephan and Mike failed to hold them back.

Cartwright’s team cleared their assigned strongpoint and were moving toward the next one. Hssim must not have figured that the humans would use minefields so extensively and their presence was breaking up the attack, buying each of the strongpoints time to gun down their attackers before they could breach inside. Hugh was taking casualties despite the effectiveness of their defenses. Some of the enhanced Ssath infantry had flame breath weapons that were doing a number on any exposed troops, and their heavy machineguns were punching through the reinforced structures as they tried to break inside.

His men did him proud, even when a Ssath broke in, his troops fought smart supporting each other against the deadly threat that was a Ssath in melee. The enemy was taking his troops down three to one in melee, but very few were making it that close to his units after facing the guns and minefields protecting each strongpoint. At the factory, it was a different story. The nearby strongpoint was being attacked, leaving them unable to assist the factory as three drop pods worth of Ssath emerged, blowing past the automated turrets Hugh had placed and forcing their way through the minefields to assault the factory itself. A brave team of Krixnas tried to repair the building, but as soon as they showed themselves, the Ssath tore them apart.

You have lost the assigned factory for ring 5 of the city. No further replacements or defensive structures may be built. Any Krixnas forces assigned to this ring of the city will now function as if their core was destroyed.