War Core Wednesday! Book 2, Chapter 7.

Chapter 7.

There hadn’t been a whole lot of time to build units, and the five mechs that were heading toward him were about the size of a medium mech. The attackers resembled a chrome ball that rolled at a brisk pace through the canyons, their path leading them to Hugh’s command post. To defend himself, Hugh had sixteen infantry mechs and one of the new M3 light mechs. In addition, the construction drones were all complete and eight of his defensive garrison were online and ready to fight.

Hugh had no idea what these strange rolling contraptions could do, he had missed their actual attack on his construction drone. While massing all his defenders in one spot might seem like the right thing to do, he felt it might be better to meet the enemy before they made it to his base. Hugh would march his troops out and try to hold the attackers back with his existing forces for as long as he could. That would give him more time to construct new units, several of which would complete in the next few minutes.

Without the skilled piloting that his soldiers provided, Hugh was left with the simple interface commands of attack, defend, or move to a specific point on the battlefield. He ordered his existing forces to attack mode and the infantry supported by a single light mech complied, dutifully marching toward the enemy. A problem arose almost immediately. Hugh wanted his infantry to engage and hold the enemy’s attention while the more powerful weapons on the light mech fired from range, but his light mech was much faster than the infantry and was pulling in the lead.

Realizing the problem, Hugh ordered the M3 to defend, it stopped in place, turret scanning for hostile units within range. His infantry caught up to the light mech just about the time the five rolling balls of death made it into the range of his M3’s main gun. With the satisfying crack of a high-velocity round firing, the light mech opened up. The first shot was on target and the shell slammed into the lead roller. Between the kinetic energy of the round and the accompanying burst of plasma, a jagged hole was melted in the shiny shell of the rolling mech.

It didn’t slow the machine in the least, and all five hostile units continued their charge. Hugh’s light mech opening up with a burst from its thirty caliber coaxial weapon. Finally, his level five machineguns actually worked as a machinegun should. He watched in satisfaction as the weapon spat out a half dozen rounds in the burst. Sadly, there was a cooldown of a second or so between bursts, but the overall rate of fire had significantly increased. The main gun cracked out another blast, the reload cycle on the small cannon proving not to be too bad either.

Unfortunately, the enemy was also in range with their weapons, and strange weapons they were. A blue glow began to gather over the shiny parts of the rolling mechs, and with a sound akin to thunder, the gathered energy burst forth. Looking like bolts of lighting, the ranged weapon seemed inaccurate, three of the five blasts missing their intended targets. One blast hit the M3, sparking over the entire mech as it burned into the thinly armored machine. To make matters worse, the blast seemed to stun the mech, causing it to go offline briefly, blinking out from Hugh’s control even though it wasn’t showing as destroyed in the interface.

The results on the blast that lanced into his approaching infantry were worse as the targeted mech was blasted apart as the energy then leaped out to hit two others. While doing less damage than the initial blast, the branching blast still tore into the infantry mechs, melting critical components. He was down three infantry and the light mech was offline, but the roller mechs had made into rifle range. A flurry of shots rang out, tearing into the brightly polished skin of the attackers. Hugh didn’t have any control over targeting and would have preferred the focus down one attacker, but instead, they fired at the enemy randomly.

Just like with the machineguns, his infantry had a good bump in their fire rate. Before, the highest level infantry units he fielded had a rate of fire was around that of a slow bolt action rifle, now, they were definitely into semi-auto territory. The only downside was that an AI-controlled infantry mech wasn’t nearly as accurate as his combat pod controlled ones were. Not only were they less accurate, but they also didn’t do much to avoid any incoming fire, they just stood there at shot at any hostile in range. The whole process reminded Hugh of the RTS games he had played with Maddison. Units in the games required direct control and a high number of actions per minute to be effective, but direct control of his units was something he didn’t have.

The rolling mechs didn’t stop to engage, they simply blew through his formation of infantry unleashing another blast as they passed and cutting down six more of his units. AI-controlled infantry may not be super accurate, but as the enemy closed, they were showering them with plasma rifle rounds, jagged holes starting to appear in the round surface of the enemy mechs. One started to smoke as it passed the infantry on their way to Hugh’s base, it slowed and then exploded when the M3 came back online and blasted wobbling death ball with another cannon shot, followed up with a few bursts of machinegun fire.

Racing past his depleted attack force, the enemy continued up the canyon incline that led to Hugh’s base. Thirteen infantry mechs and the M3 were in hot pursuit, but the enemy was faster than even his light mech was. Back at the command post, Hugh had been able to amass twelve defensive garrison units, four regular infantry, and a machinegun team. Another M3 and his first M4 were almost done with construction and Hugh tried everything that he could think of to speed up the assembly line.

Before the enemy mechs rolled out of range, his forces landed enough hits to slow down the rearmost unit. Instead of turning to fight, the roller mech kept on its path toward the command post, even though Hugh’s forces were gaining on it and taking it apart with their fire. The three other enemy mechs all had light damage but seemed to be fully functional, the crackling blue energy already coalescing around them as they closed in on the command post.

Hugh braced himself for the pain of the enemy attack, making sure his build queue was still in place. If injuries or the pain of the attack took him out of fight temporarily, he didn’t want any of his factories standing idle while the construction drones affected their repairs. He placed overlays on his vision, now having a good estimation of the range of the enemy weapons. His light mech that was walking off the assembly line now would get off a cannon shot. The mech’s coaxial machinegun along with that of his weapons team would also get a burst in before the enemy could return fire.

The enemy rolled up the ramp, reaching the plateau his base was situated on. A blast from the light cannon landed a hit on the lead roller. Both follow-up machinegun bursts also targeted the lead unit, leaving it wobbling and sparking as it tried to continue. Two blasts of plasma lightning, which is what Hugh thought the enemy weapon fire looked like, hit into his lines. The light mech was stunned and five of the tightly packed garrison troops were torn to shreds by the jolt of energy.

As the rifles of the remaining infantry got into the fight, a loud boom was heard and one of the spheres exploded in a cloud of debris. A burst of machinegun fire raked over the lead mech, which was being brought down by the massed firepower of all his defenders. Stomping its way onto the battlefield, Hugh’s first M4 medium mech had a trail of smoke coming out of the barrel of its seventy-five-millimeter main gun. One shot had taken out an enemy roller, the new addition to his forces proving its worth in its first encounter with a foe.

Even as the fire shifted over to it, the nearest enemy went into some kind of berserk mode, its speed increasing dramatically even as the sphere began to come apart. Hitting the low wall protecting his base, the rolling mech used it as a ramp, catapulting itself into the air, crashing into the nearest building, his barracks factory. Once it hit, the sphere exploded, the powerplant inside going critical in some kind of catastrophic failure. The factory wall collapsed, bringing the production of new infantry to a halt.

The final rolling mech was brought down before it could get close enough to activate its strange speed burst. These strange mechs seemed to be focused on destroying structures instead of sticking around to fight defensive units. He didn’t know efficient such units would be to build, given they were consumed in the attack, but a swarm of them could be fatal to a command post. He’d have to be careful with his recon, who knew what other mechs were out there waiting for something to trigger their attack profiles.

A squad of construction drones was assigned to repair the barracks, while another was sent to gather up the salvage left behind from the destroyed units. The roller mechs had a lot of mass, and with Hugh’s salvage perks, he hoped to net a nice amount of resources from each one. His surviving attack forces were sent to explore the location where the spheres had been found. They had been covering a small debris field and Hugh needed those resources under his control as soon as possible.

With no other defenders visible at the debris field, Hugh was happy to have his pair of light mechs charge forward to take it while the infantry played catch-up. Hugh kept the M4 at his base, for now, he didn’t have a target he wanted to unleash it on and a little extra protection didn’t hurt. Once his defensive garrison force was complete, he would attach the M4 to the main attack group. His barracks would take a little time to get back online and producing, it was showing as having a structure rating of 38%, but that number ticked up to 39% as the drones did their thing.

You have captured a debris field. In addition to the salvage waiting for you to harvest, each resource location in this battle is defended by a strong force. Defeating these defenders and taking the location under your control will grant you a special attack force.

As Hugh watched, another five sphere units rose from the sandy floor of the debris field. These looked pristine and ready for battle, but each unit was inactive. The new additions were not under his direct control but were showing as friendly. A closer examination gave him a system prompt explaining what was necessary to activate his new find.

Captured units are held at 99% functional status. To activate them and have them begin their attacks, have your construction drones complete repairs. Repairs will take place almost instantly and will not cost you any resources. Note that these units are a one-time use item and once destroyed, they cannot be rebuilt. Once repaired and activated, the units will perform their pre-programmed functions.

Siege Spheres, level 5. Once activated, the siege spheres will take the most direct path toward the enemy base. They will engage hostile forces along the way, but will not stop until they reach an enemy structure. Once a structure is within range, their powerplants will go into overdrive and they will attempt to connect with their target before detonating. While in overdrive mode, the spheres will double their speed but take damage every second until they are either destroyed or can complete their attack.

Hugh had a new weapon at his disposal, one that would take careful timing to use, but one that could be a game-changer in the battle to come. How many more of these defended resource locations were out there, and more importantly, how many were his opponent taking control of?