War Core 2, Chapter 22.

Here we get an explanation for the unusual infantry mechs from the cover art, enjoy! 

Chapter 22.

Hugh and his forces had to fight off several more attacks, but the enemy forces were almost as spent as his troops were. Once they passed that border of the battlefield indicated on his interface, the Ssath gave up the chase, rushing back to the town they had just conquered. The transports from the fishing village that they had been protecting continued down the main highway, hopefully off to somewhere safe, but Hugh was directed by his interface to take a branching road that led north toward a rendezvous with Jiro and Felicia. Comms were still down between them, but once he got closer, they could hopefully begin to communicate once again. A series of system prompts appeared as they stomped their way toward the objective. It was going to be a long walk, so Hugh had plenty of time to review his status.

Current Battle Information.

1. Infantry mechs (196).

2. Light mechs (22).

3. Air mechs (7).

Avatar functionality: 68%. Note that your avatar has an automatic self-repair function, but you may also opt to spend upgrade points to instantly repair your avatar. Do you wish to use one of your upgrade points to repair your avatar to 100% functionality? Y/N.

You have completed the following objectives.

1. Successfully land on the surface of the battle planet with more than 75% of your forces. Upgrade points awarded, 1.

2. You have prevented the enemy from destroying more than 50% of the transports assigned to your protection. Upgrade points awarded, 1.

Bonus objective completed: All transports under your protection made it to safety. Upgrade points awarded, 1.

3. Assist the Krixnas core in evacuating more than 50% of the city population. Upgrade points awarded, 1.

Bonus objective completed: Help the Krixnas core evacuate more than 75% of the city population. Upgrade points awarded, 1.

Bonus objective failed: Help the Krixnas core evacuate 100% of the city population. Upgrade points awarded, 0.

Bonus objective failed: Complete the battle with more than 50% of your forces surviving. Upgrade points awarded, 0.

Total Upgrade points available: 5.

Completing objectives and bonus objectives will generate upgrade points for you to use on your units. Upgrades persist throughout the campaign and may be different than those you normally find in the upgrade tree. Note that failure to complete some objectives will result in deductions to your upgrade point total. If you finish a scenario with negative upgrade points, your units will be either downgraded or have some of their number destroyed.

The next stage of the battle for the Krixnas homeworld is underway. Ssath forces have successfully landed and are moving out to take various objectives around the planet. The Krixnas and their human allies must defend key areas and prevent their foe from cutting off the planet’s capital city.

New objective. Rendezvous with the other human war cores and use your upgrade points at the indicated map reference location.

Hugh hit no for spending upgrade points to repair his avatar. The long march to their rendezvous point would be a good test of how quickly the self-repair function would work. Pulling up his map, Hugh noted that the reference point for their new objective was the same one they were currently marching toward. It didn’t look like they were in any danger of attack from the Ssath, but that didn’t prevent him from having scouts and flankers sent out to watch for trouble. The GCA just loved to throw some twists to the battle, and an ambush where they thought themselves safe would be right up their alley.

“How many do you think we lost back there?” Brubaker asked over a private channel.

“What do you mean? The civilians or our losses?” Hugh asked in reply.

“Both, I suppose. I mean, I know what the losses normally look like in a battle, but this campaign is supposed to have a higher lethality rating,” Brubaker answered.

“We signed up for the risk, it’s the civilians I’m more worried about. The Krixnas are aliens, and I’m not sure they value life the same way we do, but I can’t stand to see the innocent killed for no reason,” Hugh said.

“How many people live in a small city on earth? If this Krixnas one is similar, and it looked to be from the size of the place, even the small percentage that didn’t make it must amount to tens of thousands of casualties,” Brubaker added.

Hugh and the others marched in silence, the normal banter among soldiers was muted, tempered by the losses they had taken. The silence was fine with Hugh, his emotions were running a rollercoaster right now. He felt relief that they had done their part in the battle, but could he have done more? Could he have saved more lives? There was sadness and anger in equal measure. He was sad for the innocent lives being lost in the aftermath of the battle, how many GCA satellites were firing beams of death down onto unsuspecting Krixnas? His anger was directed not only to the savage Ssath who brought this war, but perhaps even more so toward the GCA who allow this to happen. They had the tech and strength to end the conflicts, but instead, seemed to be the ones perpetuating them.

“Major Logan, do you read me?” Felicia’s voice called out over comms.

“Roger that, it looks like the connection is good,” Hugh replied, glad to hear another human core had survived their fight.

“I just made it to the rendezvous, Jiro is here with his forces and we’re only waiting on you. Comms were down, and I suspect the GCA unlocked them once you got close enough to us. I’ve heard nothing from the other three cores. Are you still engaged with the Ssath, do you need any assistance?” Felicia asked.

“Negative, we’ve been done with our fight for a while, it looks like we’re,” Hugh paused looking at the progress they had made. He had kind of zoned out back there, moving along with his troops and losing track of time while he thought about the day’s events. “I see we’re about five kilometers out,” Hugh replied after checking his map overlay. It didn’t seem like his troops had been marching long enough to have already made it to the rendezvous point, but perhaps the GCA was doing something to speed their passage? If this was all some kind of game to them, he could see how they wouldn’t want to sit around and watch mechs marching all over the place, that would likely bore their bloodthirsty viewers.

“Good, we’ll see you shortly. Jiro is finishing up with the upgrade factory here, and it won’t take long for my troops to run through, after that, it should be clear for you to use by the time you get here,” Felicia advised.

“What exactly is the upgrade process?” Hugh asked.

“There’s a structure resembling one of our factories out here in the middle of nowhere. You just activate it in your interface and march the troops through that you want to upgrade, and the factory gets to work,” Felicia advised.

“That’s weird, how did you two do in your fight?” Hugh asked, curious how his performance compared to the other cores.

“The GCA must have known my ground force was smaller and assigned us to hold a major road junction for a set amount of time. We skirmished constantly with the Ssath, but before they could build up their forces for a real push, we received notice to pull back,” Felicia said.

“Hello Hugh,” Jiro said. Whatever the upgrade process was, it must not have required his entire attention. “We were sent to cover the evacuation of some coastal villages. There were local Krixnas forces to assist, but they were AI-controlled, and frankly, they were garbage. My troops were hit hard, but we held on until the last surviving transports were evacuated,” Jiro told them.

“I had the same type of fight, Jiro. We evacuated a fishing village and assisted a nearby Krixnas core with the evacuation of a small city. I’m sorry to say the casualties among my forces were pretty bad, and not all the civilians made it out,” Hugh admitted, feeling ashamed that he couldn’t save everyone.

“We also took losses and couldn’t protect all the Krixnas transports. Do you think the GCA will really just zap the innocent civilians based on the losses here on the battle planet?” Jiro asked.

“Sadly, I think so. They don’t seem to value life as they claimed. It’s probably best we focus on the battle at hand. The only thing we can do, for now, is work to defeat the Ssath,” Felicia offered.

“How many upgrade points did everyone get? I have five, but I missed several of the bonus objectives,” Hugh asked, trying to change the subject to get their minds off the more depressing thoughts they were all having.

“I earned four and lost out on several bonus points for the high casualty rate among the civilians,” Jiro said.

“You both have me beat, I only nabbed two points for the crossroads defense, but I did get two more for my participation in the space battle,” Felicia said. Hugh would have liked to see an extra point for the space battle, but Felicia was the one that did the lion’s share of the work.

“Any advice on how I should spend my upgrade points?” Hugh asked.

“You’ll get a chance to spend some to level up your forces, but don’t neglect other upgrades just to jump the overall level up higher. You will get one level of upgrade automatically, kind of a reward for surviving the battle. I think I have it easier than you two since I only have a company of Royal Marines to upgrade, no light mechs or air mechs,” Felicia offered.

“My force is mixed and a bit different than your units. I bumped the level of each unit type and added a melee upgrade to my infantry,” Jiro advised.

“Thanks, I’ll maybe try to level up everything and then dig into an upgrade or two that looks interesting,” Hugh told them.

“So, what are your thoughts on the Krixnas? They don’t seem to be doing too well at defending their world,” Jiro asked.

“I didn’t have any Krixnas assisting at the crossroads, so I can’t really say,” Felicia said.

“Mine were AI controlled, so I’m sure they didn’t perform up to their potential,” Jiro offered.

“As far as the Krixnas combat potential, they stink at long range, but they do better than our mechs in melee. If you have some working with you, try to integrate them into your existing units to bolster your close combat abilities. I was worried about the Krixnas core’s reaction to me, but he seemed friendly enough and was more than willing to work with me and coordinate our forces,” Hugh told the other cores.

“That sounds like a plan, we might even be able to kite the Ssath a bit, allow the Krixnas to go hand to hand with them while our forces back off and bring our firepower to bear,” Jiro offered. Hugh wasn't surprised to hear him use gaming terms like kiting an enemy, it appeared each core had a game advisor like he had with Maddison.

They batted around several options for working with the Krixnas, both Felicia and Jiro didn’t seem too perturbed about having aliens as their allies. They had been fighting longer than he had, and from what they told him, both had used alien mercenaries in other campaigns. His scouts called out when the crossroads with the upgrade factory came into view.

The building was based on a normal human core factory, and a line of infantry was walking through the building. It was Felicia’s infantry, and it looked like they were about halfway done with their upgrades. Jiro’s forces had spread out, creating a defensive perimeter while Felica went through the upgrade process. Jiro’s mechs looked different, but he couldn’t investigate too much as a human mech at the back of the line waiting for upgrades waved, it was Felicia’s avatar. Her avatar was a couple of feet taller than a standard infantry mech and also sported an array of comm antenna’s attached to a backpack-shaped armored box on its back. She hadn’t gone through the upgrade process yet, but Hugh could see her mech was much better armed than a standard version.

“Felicia, how did the infantry mech avatar perform for you?” Hugh asked.

“It did well enough, I thought about going with a light mech, but I didn’t want to stand out too much, given how my force is comprised entirely of infantry. My plasma rifle works better than the standard units and my armor is upgraded as well. They even gave me a grenade launcher attached to my other arm,” Felicia answered, twirling to show off her mech. Her infantry was pretty close in style to Hugh’s forces, only having a slightly different camouflage pattern and the Union Jack instead of an American flag, of course.

“Hello Hugh, I see you picked a light mech as well,” Jiro said. Hugh was a bit taken aback by Jiro’s avatar, it was totally different than he expected. Where Hugh and the others usually had a vehicle-based mech for light mechs and above, Jiro was installed in an infantry mech that was a good bit larger than Felicia's. Instead of a tank-based avatar, his mech looked like something from a science fiction anime. Jiro was housed in a samurai warrior looking mech, with a sword belted to his waist and a plasma rifle mounted to the side of his left arm. The other arm was mounted with a hollow tube that was showing up as a grenade launcher in Hugh’s interface.

“Hey Jiro, love the new mech, how exactly did that happen?” Hugh asked, curious how Jiro’s avatar seemed so much different than their normal mechs.

“As I mentioned before, the GCA altered my forces a bit to account for my personal preference. Instead of World War 2 stuff like your mechs are patterned after, mine are based on samurai from the Sengoku period of my nation’s history. Of course, my love of anime seems to have also played a part in the design. Our light mechs and others are simple upgraded and up-sized infantry mechs, with a lot more firepower and some transformation capability at higher levels,” Jiro said, drawing his sword to show Hugh. The blade looked was a metal alloy of some type, but the edge glowed blue with plasma.

“Okay, that’s totally not fair. You get giant robot samurai, and hey, your infantry is completely different too,” Hugh said, just now realizing that Jiro’s infantry mechs looked like scaled-down versions of Jiro’s light mech. Each infantry mech sported armor reminiscent of a samurai warrior, and they all had a melee weapon in addition to the arm-mounted plasma rifles like Hugh’s forces wielded.

“Well, I kind of wasted some reward points at Harmony Station on a skin for my troops. I know, people give me grief about it, but my soldiers love it,” Jiro admitted. That was something Valery had warned Hugh not to do, wasting precious reward points on cosmetics. Did his Russian friend have it wrong? There was something to be said for soldiers feeling like an elite force, and nothing says elite more than giant anime robot samurai mechs.

“I was warned to stay away from cosmetic skins, but I have to admit, that’s just plain cool, Jiro. How well do your melee weapons work?” Hugh asked, curious if that was an upgrade he should consider.

“They work pretty well, the plasma edge to the weapons does serious damage, but it’s nowhere near as powerful as the claws and chainsaw teeth on the Ssath. These level three versions aren’t super powerful, but at higher levels, it’s almost like a samurai lightsaber. My soldiers have all grown accustomed to their melee weapons, and I think I’d have a revolution on my hands if I didn’t grab that upgrade in every campaign,” Jiro said.

“It looks like my people are through the upgrade process, I’ll head in and then you can start running your troops through,” Felicia said, marching her avatar toward the entrance of the factory. Jiro headed back to watch the perimeter, Felicia’s Royal Marines joining in the defense.