War Core Wednesday! Book 2, Chapter 11.

Chapter 11.

Hugh followed the progress of his siege spheres; the surviving pair began to open the distance between them and the rest of his forces. There was only one critical location standing between him and the Ximkas, the debris field that should have held the enemy’s siege spheres. His foe had a difficult decision to make, the spheres were very powerful and effective against structures, so letting them through had a chance to seriously damage or destroy his command post and production buildings. Did the foe unleash his own spheres to counter Hugh’s attack, or hold them in reserve for a later strike against Hugh’s base?

The sight of five enemy spheres rolling towards his own was a good thing in Hugh’s mind. It meant the enemy felt his threat was severe enough to not hold anything back. He might be reading more into this, but it also might indicate the enemy had taken too much of a beating and lacked the troops necessary to fight off Hugh’s offensive. The spheres closed in on each other, their armored shells glowing as energy built up for a blast. Five on two weren’t good odds, and the first volley saw one of Hugh’s spheres shattered and another damaged. Only one enemy sphere was hit, and it didn’t seem to affect its mobility or weapons systems.

His final sphere must have calculated the damage was too severe to make it the command post, instead choosing a closer hostile target. Going into overdrive, his final sphere used its speed to dodge the next volley of energy blasts before slamming into the lead enemy sphere. A powerful blast shook the canyon walls as energy designed to take out a building was unleashed in the small space. Secondary explosions rocked the area as all the enemy spheres, save for one, were taken out in the blast.

The surviving sphere was the one in the rear of their formation and while it had some scorch marks and dents over its surface, it seemed fully functional. Unable to recall the weapon once sent, the enemy was forced to let his single sphere continue down the canyon, heading directly toward the first group of Hugh’s forces. His monstrous-looking Plenurians weren’t intimidated by the sphere or the deadly energy blast it unleashed on them. As the sphere approached, they lashed out and goo-covered tentacles started burrowing into any spot they could get ahold of.

In what was an almost comical display, a half dozen of the surviving monsters were clinging to the outside of the sphere, grasping on with one pair of appendages and flailing away at the sphere with a second. A metal sphere with monsters spinning around the outside of it continued on its course. First one, then another of the monsters lost their grip and were hurled to their death. The others didn’t give up, the goo on their limbs eating through the armored shell and then they began to dig into the more vital bits inside. Something important broke and the sphere veered off and crashed into the side of the canyon. The resulting explosion obliterated the sphere and the remaining Plenurians, but it was a more than fair trade as far as Hugh was concerned.

You have taken control of a critical location; the debris field holds the remains of old mechs that await your salvage operations.

The debris field on the Ximkas side wasn’t much of a prize, the siege spheres didn’t respawn for him once he took control, it appeared they only did that for the initial capture. It did mean that the final critical location was under his control, and another source of resources was denied to his foe. His focus wasn’t on this location, though, it was on the enemy command post and a chance to end this fight.

Closing in the objective were his mercenary forces, closely followed by his main army. The mercenaries only amounted to ten of the small combat drones and five of the smaller swarmer bots, but with AI targeting the enemy mechs, they would be sacrificial lambs, eating the first volleys and allowing Hugh’s main army to close into range before suffering any casualties. The ramp leading up to the enemy base was in sight a short while later, the mercenary forces wasting no time as they marched up to engage.

Hugh held breath he didn’t have, anxiously waiting for the first combat drone to crest the rise. Once in view, Hugh finally got a good look at the enemy base. Perfect, there was only a single medium mech and two light mechs in view. Construction drones were also there in force, but their combat prowess paled in comparison to the larger Ximkas machines. Incoming fire destroyed the first of the combat drones to show itself, but both the medium and light mechs fired on the first target they saw, allowing the others to climb up the ramp and charge toward the enemy forces before they were ready for another volley.

A second volley rang out as Hugh’s infantry mechs ascended the ramp, his light and medium mechs following just behind. A third volley fired, taking out all but a pair of combat drones, who were now in range and returned fire with their light weapons, doing little damage to the medium mech at the head of the defender’s formation. They had now entered the range of the armed Ximkas construction drones, who peppered Hugh’s mercenary force with their laser weapons.

A pair of blasts from the 75mm main guns of his M4 Sherman’s landed on the enemy medium mech, tearing deep gouges in the armor. A second later a pair of smaller blasts slammed home, his surviving pair of M3 light mechs adding their cannon fire to the mix. His final pair of mercenary combat drones and the five swarmer bots were destroyed in the next volley, but now all of Hugh’s forces were in range. Two 75mm cannons, two 37mm cannons, several machineguns, and the fire of over a score of infantry mechs showed the lead enemy mech.

The enemy medium mech staggered under the concentrated fire, managing to fire off a blast from its twin-tailed plasma cannons before succumbing to the damage. Blasts ripped holes in his infantry formation, but Hugh had spaced them out to reduce losing too many with one blast. Fire shifted to the closest Ximkas light mech, its armor was thick but nowhere near that of the medium mech, and it fell much faster. Hugh was down to seven infantry when the final enemy light mech was destroyed.

His forces shifted fire to the armed construction drones that still swarmed about the base. One by one they fell, and during the firefight, another pair rolled off the assembly line only to be shredded by incoming plasma rounds. When the last defender fell, Hugh was down to two battered M4 medium mechs and one light mech, all the infantry mechs were gone, though a steady stream of replacements was on the way. The rally point for his force was the resource gathering station on the Ximkas side. So far only a couple of infantry mechs had reached the rally point, and he was still waiting on the construction drones to arrive and start repairs on the damaged cannon that helped to protect the critical location.

It looked like he might not need to build up forces for a second push, as his three surviving mechs started to pummel the medium mech factory. The new level five designs for his forces did some serious damage, but the Ximkas mech factory was as sturdy and heavily armored as their mechs were. The overall size of the building was larger than his own. Even more massive was the command post. The Krixnas structures had been the same way, and Hugh suspected it was part of the balancing efforts the GCA used. Both races used a combined infantry mech and construction drone unit, eliminating the need for a barracks, but increasing the overall size of the command post structure to compensate.

A damage filter activated when Hugh concentrated on the enemy factory. Each shot from the medium mechs seemed to add two or three percent to the damage, and the light mech was doing one percent per cannon hit. The machineguns were adding damage as well, but it was hard to gauge how much they were contributing. One mech shifted fire as the door to the nearby light mech factory rolled up and a fresh mech walked out, plasma guns already blazing. A hit on one of his medium mechs took out a leg and much of the side armor, but the unit was still in the fight, the main gun, and one machinegun was still operating and returning fire.

The enemy fire drew his other two mechs who now also engaged the enemy. One on one, the Ximkas were more powerful, but they couldn’t handle three on one. A few move volleys and the Ximkas mech was down, along with another construction drone. Hugh’s force at the enemy base now consisted of only a single medium mech which went right back to firing at the enemy factory, the structure was at 88% damage and rising.

It was a race to see if he could finish it off before the light mech factory produced another unit. The more frequently produced construction drones were easy enough to fight off, but each one that appeared delayed the destruction of the medium factory. The damage finally reached 100%, the structure collapsing only twenty seconds before another light mech emerged, the new unit making short work of the solitary M4. The light mech factory had taken a couple of hits, but it was only at 4% damage and a newly produced construction drone was already working to repair it.

The advantage swung even further in Hugh’s favor, the GCA rules for the fight prevented the cores from rebuilding their structures so his foe only had light mechs and construction drones to work with. To make matters worse for the Ximkas, Hugh controlled the rest of the battlefield, including most of the available resources. The Ximkas only had a single combat unit built, but Hugh’s factories had been cranking out replacements this whole time. His only challenge was getting them to the fight. This battlefield wasn’t the largest he had fought upon, but it was a long and winding path from his base all the way to the resource gathering station on the Ximkas side where his rally point was set.

Hugh had twenty-two infantry mechs built and on the way, but only three were already at the rally point, the rest were strung out in a long line from the rally point to his barracks. A single light mech was passing the mercenary outpost and was making good speed, while a second unit was just coming off the assembly line at his light mech factory. The medium mech factory was working away, the first replacement was about halfway done.

Over time, the monsters lurking in the two oasis locations were slowly replenishing, but there were currently only two at each location. Mercenaries would also refresh at some point, but Hugh only had fifty tokens to spend on them. Thankfully, he didn’t need a unit parked at the mercenary outpost to access it, since the location was under his control. A quick check revealed the well was nearly empty there, with only a single combat drone available for hire. Hugh would wait on that, not wanting to order a single weak unit and need to wait the five minutes for the transport carrying it to arrive, it was better to be patient until he could use up all his remaining tokens at once.

The construction drones finally arrived at the rally point, all five were tasked with getting the cannon back online, but he did want them to eventually get to work on hauling back the supply crates that had been slowly accumulating there. While the cannon was a total wreck, his squad of construction drones was making good progress. All the resource gathering across the battlefield had been keeping him just ahead of the curve, having enough resources to keep his factories pumping out replacements, while at the same time having a small reserve of resources for an emergency.

You have lost control of the debris field.

That was to be expected, the enemy was bound to send at least something out to investigate what Hugh was doing. It hadn’t been worth it to station any forces there, it was too close to the enemy base and he preferred keeping them at the rally point where the cannon would help in any defense. His drones were almost done with repairs, Hugh pulled four of the five off the repairs to start gathering resource crates. Even if the enemy were somehow able to overpower his forces, Hugh would deny them as many resources as he could.

His army was growing, and the enemy had to be hitting some resource bottlenecks in addition to the loss of the factory that produced their best units. As soon as Hugh’s forces were gathered, he would make a second, and hopefully, final push on the enemy command post.