War Core 2, Chapter 25.

Chapter 25.

Sergeant Mendez clanked his rifle barrel into the face of his mech as he instinctively tried to move his hand up to scratch an itch at the end of his nose. Did he really even have an itch, or was it some goofball annoyance built-in by the GCA? He wasn’t supposed to feel his normal body while in the combat pod, only his mech avatar, but Mendez could swear he would often feel aches, itches, and even thirst at times. The doc said it was like phantom pains when you lose a limb or whatnot, but he wasn’t so sure. What he was sure of was that this ground was about as good as he could ask for in a defensive battle.

“Ross, take Haines around the bend and confirm you cant see us up here,” Mendez ordered. They were stopping right before a sharp bend in the road. If they couldn’t be seen, they couldn’t be shot, at least not by direct fire weapons. The pair of infantry mechs he ordered out, moved around the bend, relaying what they could see of the other marines he had positioned around the road. Mendez began to tweak his squad, moving them into concealment as best he could.

“Sarge, as long as we stay away from the edge of the dropoff, we can’t be seen from below,” Ross confirmed. That was fine with Mendez, he didn’t like heights, and standing near the edge of the road wasn’t something he wanted to do. The dropoff was hundreds of feet down and nothing could survive that fall, even an armored mech.

“Alright, we set up here, get those drone things over here and see if they can dig us some fighting positions. Ross and Haines, since you’re already down there, use your plasma grenades and leave some surprises for our guests,” Mendez ordered.

It took some work, but eventually, the Krixnas civilian drones with them got to work and to his surprise, they actually were pretty good at it. They dug a small depression for each marine to lie prone in, as well as moved some of the foliage to hide them from a casual observer. Depending on how much time the Ssath gave them, Mendez would have the creepy drone things improve on their positions, with alternate firing points and covered paths to fall back from.

Their second squad was moved further up the road, closer to the mountaintop village. A squad of ten marines was about the limit to defend the narrow roadway. Any more than ten and they would start getting in each other’s way and also be packed too tight together if the Ssath brought more indirect fire weapons to the party. He was confident they could tear the attackers a new one, so long as they didn’t get in too close. He had watched all those stupid dinosaur movies as a kid and the Ssath kind of freaked him out. Still, he was a marine, and that meant he was really good at killing everything, including creepy mechanized dino things.

“Sergeant, can those drone things help us out with the traps we’re working up, these tier three mechs aren’t exactly the best at fine motor skill stuff,” Haines asked.

“I’ll send a pair down,” Mendez replied. It took some work, the drones wandering around in confusion until Haines walked around the corner and waived to them.

“For having artificial intelligence, these things are kind of dumb,” Haines complained.

“You know why that is, private?” Mendez asked.

“No, why?” Haines asked.

“Because they used a private’s brain to base them off of, and every NCO knows there’s nothing dumber than a private,” Mendes said smugly.

“Then why do you give us guns and explosives,” Haines retorted.

“We do that so we can weed out the ones that are too dumb to live. Why do you think I sent you and Ross down there to rig up the traps? If your stupidity overcomes your training, me and the others will be safe up the hill and out of the blast radius,” Mendez replied smugly.

The comms chatter was subdued after that, the men occasionally giving each other grief like soldiers have probably done since the first ones picked up sharpened sticks to fight with. While they worked, the air mech flew over the mountain trail, looking for signs of the Ssath forces that were supposed to be on their way. He didn’t mind fighting them, but if they just chose to stay away for the next forty-eight hours, that would be great.

“Heads up, I’ve got movement on the road, about three miles from your position. I’m moving closer to get an accurate count, but I’d guess their numbers being at least a hundred infantry mechs and a dozen or so larger ones, design type unknown,” the pilot called out. Mendez watched her mech fly lower as she closed in on where the Ssath must be at, only to veer off abruptly as several plasma bolts pierced the air near her mech.

“Woah, they’re not shy about keeping me away, I’m afraid I can’t get you any closer look,” the pilot, whose name showed up as Cooper on his comm history, said. She sounded kind of cute and Mendez wondered what she looked like? Nah, it was stupid to get involved with an officer, and he focused his attention on the task at hand.

“No problem, stays safe up there,” Mendez replied. The command channel beeped as Major Logan checked in on him.

“Sergeant, do you have everything you need?” The Major asked.

“Roger that, sir, we’re good to go and even have some surprises for the dinos and a couple of nice choke points set up for their arrival,” Mendez replied. The Major seemed like a cool enough guy, and he felt sorry for the officer given how the GCA had blended up his body and loaded him into the war core. Command said it was still him in there, but Mendez had some doubts, what if the GCA hadn’t tweaked his brain or something and he was just some computer program that acted like a human?

Conspiracy theories weren’t going to help him kill Ssath, so Mendez instead took a moment to confirm that the squad that was digging in at the second ambush point was almost ready. With their second squad squared away, Mendez moved to his fighting position and dropped prone. It wasn’t a graceful drop, that just wasn’t possible in a level three infantry mech, but he was on the ground and his mech wasn’t damaged. Targeting arrays pulled up in his vision, seeking out hostile mechs for him to destroy. Mendez turned them off, preferring to use a simple targeting reticle rather than the mech-assisted auto-targeting feature.

Marines didn’t trust a computer to aim for them, and he knew most of his would do things the old-fashioned way, well, as old-fashioned as you got when operating a mech millions of miles from earth. He settled in, watching as Ross and Haines returned from setting up their surprises. The Krixnas drones were also sent back, they represented civilians in this fight, and they had no place on the battlefield. At least the Ssath didn’t make him wait long, they moved with a purpose when prey was nearby. Mendez didn’t like it that the Ssath mechs were faster than the human equivalent. Fast and with a mouth full of chainsaw teeth to boot. Plasma rifle pointed downrange, he waited with the other marines.

“I want everyone to fire by sections, and after the first volleys, switch to independent fire,” Mendez ordered. The strange restriction on their weapons at lower levels had made the NCO’s and officers adopt some very old tactics from the days of muskets and primitive single-shot rifles. It was a good thing humans had been fighting for as long as they’ve existed and could easily adapt to any battlefield.

“Target priority is anything bigger than a Ssath infantry mech, then the infantry. If they have more of those little buggers that they shoot out of their light mechs, call out if one is on you, whoever’s closest will blast it off of you,” Mendez ordered. In the distance, the muffled thump of a plasma grenade going off around the bend was heard.

“Sergeant Mendez, you took out a pair of Ssath scouts with that. The others have slowed down, they’re looking for any other traps,” Cooper, their eyes in the sky, called out. Comm chatter from the Major and Cooper was tuned out, Mendez needed to focus on the fight in front of him. If Major Logan needed him, he could message him directly or have Cooper relay a call. For now, he had killing to do.

“We should have five more surprises for them,” Mendez called out to Cooper.

“Not anymore, the Ssath have a couple of infantry mechs with tools instead of claws working on disarming them,” Cooper advised.

“That sucks, how come they get dino sapper’s sergeant?” Ross complained.

“Moron, didn’t you read the briefing. They’re here to set up some sensor relay, and that means technicians and crap. At least we got a couple and slowed them down,” Mendez replied.

“Yeah, but me and Hines used all our grenades to rig up the traps,” Ross whined.

“Lock it up and get ready, they’ll be coming any minute now,” Mendez ordered.

A pair of Ssath infantry peeked around the corner before cautiously walking forward. One waved to the others around the bend in the road and three more infantry mechs walked forward. These must have been the engineer mechs, instead of plasma rifles over their shoulders like the other Ssath infantry were equipped with, these guys had containers that must have held tools and stuff. One of their normally claw-tipped hands was replaced with various tools. The Ssath engineers were looking closely at the ground in front of them, their movements reminding Mendez of a hound sniffing for prey.

“Everyone fire on my mark, don’t try to stagger your volleys, I want those engineers taken out of the fight now,” Mendez ordered, changing things up to not let what he assumed were valuable targets, escape.

With a crack and hiss, ten plasma rifles opened up. Each of the three Ssath engineers was hit by multiple rounds, taking all three down in under a second. The pair of escorts charged forward, the plasma rifles over their shoulders banging out rounds randomly, his marines must have been hard to spot, at least for the first shot. As his troops fired more rounds, their positions became apparent, and the following swarm of Ssath, peppered the area the marines were hiding in.

One of the marines went offline, his mech sustaining fatal damage. Mendez didn’t stop to look who it was, for now, his only job was servicing targets. He fired a round that hit a Ssath in the chest, the plasma burning through but not taking the dino mech down. As he started to line up a second shot, another of his marines beat him to it, landing a round to the Ssath’s head, taking it out.

The return fire intensified as more Ssath infantry pushed poured around the corner to join the fight. Being prone and with at least something resembling a protected position dug by the Krixnas mechs, Mendez and his squad were getting an insane kill ratio. There was only so much a single squad could do, though, and the mass of Ssath pushed ever closer to his position. Once in melee range, it would be over quickly and not in his favor.

“Ross and Haines, you’re out of grenades, pull back to the next position. First section, when the Ssath close in, throw your grenades and then fall back as well. Second section, once first pulls back toss your nades and bug out,” Mendez ordered. Ross and Hanes stood up from the ground, their level three mechs were still somewhat clunky in their movement. Seeing two targets in plain sight drew the fire from most of the Ssath, leaving his two marines riddled with plasma.

Mendez couldn’t come up with a better plan, he was still thinking like these were flesh and blood marines out on the battlefield, able to stay low and move with speed and skill. While he continued to fire, the three remaining marines in the squad’s first section began hurling grenades. With only a small section of road to safely approach from, the Ssath had packed themselves in pretty tight, and the first blasts of plasma tore into their ranks.

This proved enough of a distraction to allow two of the three marines in that section to make their escape. When the second section started to throw, Mendez joined in. The Ssath had spread apart once they realized that the humans were upgraded with grenades, but he would still get kills and the blasts did seem to disorient the enemy, giving his troops a chance to fall back.

“Sergeant Mendez, the light mech is pulling around the corner, it appears to have an indirect fire weapon along the lines of a light mortar,” Cooper called out as he threw his last grenade and began to maneuver his mech away from the approaching Ssath. He could see the Ssath light mech clearly, looking like some kind of mini-T-Rex from here. A large tube was mounted on the things back and as he watched; the flash of a plasma mortar round was seen.

“Everyone, spread out, incoming mortar rounds!” Mendez shouted over the squad channel. The marines moved further apart, opening more space as they fell back so that a single blast wouldn’t take out more than one of them.

“Once we get back to…” Mendez started to say then a bright light flashed around him and the controls to his mech were cut off.

The mech that you were interfacing with has been destroyed. Casualty calculation is commencing.

Congratulations, you have survived the destruction of your mech. Please stand by until either another unit is linked to your combat pod or until the completion of the battle. Please be aware that further casualty calculations will occur once this battle, and then the campaign is completed.

Great, he survived another fight, but unlike normal, he’d have to face at least another two rounds of wondering whether he would live or die. Mendez vowed to himself that if he ever had his sights on someone from this GCA, they were getting lit up. All he could do now was sit in the dark and wait.