War Core 2, Chapter 1.

Chapter 1.

Hugh grouped the remnants of his attack force into a single unit. He had started with a hundred infantry and twenty light mechs, but now had just twenty-two infantry and seven light mechs remaining. Air support was being built, but it was unknown if they would make it in time to protect his remaining troops. Back at the command post, his barracks and mech factories had already queued up replacements, but for every unit he produced, it seemed his enemy had three or four.

This battlefield was a mess, unlike the ones he had fought over with the Krixnas. His command post wasn’t situated on the far end of the battlefield, his rear protected by the zone barrier, no, here he was near the center of the zone and his foe could attack from almost any angle. To make matters worse, the resources near his command post were depleted early in the battle and now he had to expand further out to gather what he needed. The resource expansions were too far away for his drones to effectively gather them, so he was forced to expend resources to build secondary command posts near the resource nodes in order to harvest them effectively.

Hugh was up to three expansion posts now, and while each of those provided badly needed resources, they also required him to tie up forces to defend them. His enemy had proven very adept at exploiting any opening in Hugh’s defenses, a quick strike already had destroyed an early expansion. The resources there were nearly depleted anyway, so Hugh didn’t opt to rebuild, even though it was the closest one to his main command post.

A notification that his units were under attack drew his attention away from the survivors of his attack force. One of his expansions was being overrun with enemy infantry. His opponent fielded a purely biological force, their units were swarms of deadly creatures that looked like a cross between a dog and an insect. The foe used their natural weapons to destroy his forces apart with their superior numbers, their claws and teeth having no trouble tearing through armor plate. Hugh’s troops could easily take down several of the attackers for each one of their own that they lost, given the enemy’s lack of ranged firepower, but there seemed to be no end to the enemy forces as his opponent replaced losses much quicker than Hugh was able to.

Gunfire erupted from the pair of bunkers guarding the entrance to the furthest expansion command post. Unlike his main command post, the expansions had only one way in or out, making defending them a bit easier. He had unlocked the defensive bunkers earlier in the fight, and each housed a squad of infantry, granting them protection from the foe, while also increasing the range of their weapons. Hugh had supplemented the bunkers with a pair of heavy indirect fire mechs, whose heavy guns were already lobbing shells at the swarm of attackers charging toward him.

The big guns were blasting holes in the formation of attackers, allowing the infantry in the bunkers to pick off whatever remained. It was what Hugh had hoped for when spending the resources to create these enhanced defenses at his expansions. Here was where he would bleed the enemy dry, and when the resources they controlled had been expended, he would counterattack. No more hasty attacks like his last failed attempt. This time he would stay on the defensive and enjoy the favorable kill to death ratio his defenders were providing him.

A squadron of flying mechs had been completed and Hugh directed them to cover the remnants of his attacking force, guarding them until they could return to the main command post and have their damage repaired. It was much more efficient to repair damage rather than build a new unit from scratch. Adjusting production, Hugh shifted his focus to ground units. His air units were costly to produce and while the enemy ground forces only had a few ranged weapons that could hit his air mechs, their command posts and expansions had extensive air defenses that would tear his units to pieces. The final assault on the enemy would have to be done on the ground.

Another of his expansions was now under attack, his defenses there were holding off the enemy, but a new threat had appeared. Dozens of the swarming attackers lifted off the ground, thin membranes extended from their carapaces, and began to flap, granting the enemy infantry the ability to fly. His bunkers shifted fire, the infantry able to easily target the flying units, while his artillery tried to hold back the ground units still pushing forward.

The enemy flying infantry were even weaker than the regular ones, but there were too many for the forces defending the bunkers to handle. One by one, the flyers dropped on top of the artillery mechs, tearing the mech’s light armor apart with their claws while the forces in the bunkers tried desperately to protect the vulnerable units. Without artillery support, and with their attention drawn to the flying units, the attacking ground units made their way to the bunkers and started to hack at the armored structure. His defenders shifted fire again, ignoring the flyers and concentrating on the ones attacking them directly.

He was going to lose the expansion, and sadly, it appeared his foe was using the same tactic at his other two expansions. His battered attack force along with the air mechs covering them tried to push the attackers back at one of the expansion points, but even with their help, the base was destroyed and the last of his offensive forces destroyed. His second, and then third expansion fell while Hugh tried a desperate last stand, ordering his drones to use the last of the available resources to reinforce his command post with more bunkers.

He didn’t have long to prepare his defenses as the enemy took only a few minutes to reorganize their scattered units into a single attack force. To his credit, Hugh held off the first enemy attack, but they had been able to breach some of the bunkers and kill off more of his defenders. He was unable to rebuild his force, the last of the resources were now gone, and salvaging the wrecks nearby wouldn’t yield nearly enough resources for him to replace his losses. The enemy was no doubt already hauling in resources from the expansions that he had just lost, and their next attack would be overwhelming.

The enemy had won this fight, the third one today. He was getting better, but this foe appeared to be beyond his skill to defeat. The loss would be a hard one to take, and with a heavy heart, he opened the main menu and selected the option to exit the game.

“Woohoo, three in a row! I’ve still got what it takes,” Madison shouted over comms. Their practice sessions had revealed that his consultant was a very poor sport when it came to winning the game she had him play in their free time. Hugh liked the game well enough, but Maddison was much more experienced at it than he was. Still, he learned something each time, and this last battle was no exception.

“That does it, I say we pry Major Logan out of that war core and shove Maddison inside to take over,” Sergeant Landry said, adding insult to injury. Several of the soldiers enjoyed watching their matches and took far too much pleasure in his defeats. Unlike the real battles, no soldier died in the game, and Hugh doubted the zeroes and ones that made up the digital combatants cared one bit at all about who won and lost.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up Sergeant Landry,” Hugh replied, placing an emphasis on the man’s rank. The sergeant got the hint and found something else to occupy his time.

“Well played Maddison, but you really need to learn how to be a more gracious winner,” Hugh said.

“No way, do you think the aliens will be gracious if they win?” Maddison replied. It was true, and though the computer games weren’t very accurate, he did face odd battle parameters in the real conflicts, some of which resembled what he saw in the various games that he played with Maddison.

Maddison was soon distracted, accepting a challenge from one of the new soldiers added to the unit. There had been a lot of new faces over the last few months as word was released to the public about the GCA, the war cores, and the battles humanity had been involved in. All in all, the response had been positive, and most people had rallied around the efforts to defend our homeworld. Others saw the war as an opportunity to gain fame and wealth, selling their conspiracy theories to those inclined to believe such things. With the cat out of the bag, information flowed more freely between the cores and Hugh had picked up quite a few tricks from his peers. It was difficult to communicate directly, given their varying schedules, but messages were sent back and forth between them. He kept in touch with Valery, who was doing well and holding his sector of space.

Hugh switched his view over to a feed from Washington, DC where a new memorial was being created. When it was completed, the stone memorial would resemble the shape of a war core and have the names of all that had fallen etched upon it. Sadly, many of those that had been lost in the battle were forgotten. Between the mind wipes and secrecy agreements, nobody was sure which losses were due to the GCA conflict and which were due to the terrestrial conflicts that were used as cover for their activities.

New units were being rotated into the facility, as they tried to build a varied mix of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines to pilot the combat pods. Around the world, other combat pods were brought online, allowing those nations without a war core to participate in the fight to save earth. The results had been mixed, and while the language barriers were eliminated inside the pods, cultural differences still existed between the various forces. To make matters even stranger, some fringe groups were being considered to join the fight. Hugh wasn’t privy to the negotiations going on around the world, but he was told to not be too distracted if some rather unusual, attached units appeared in his order of battle.

As far as his own fight, nothing had happened since the defeat of the Krixnas several months ago. Things were about to heat up soon enough, since the Canadian core, Bodie Hamilton, had finally stopped the Ximkas' advance into human space. It was thought that they were far from willing to give up their drive on the habitable world defended by the Canadian core and would attack into Hugh’s space to make an end-run toward their goal.

“All command staff report to the briefing room,” a page rang out over the base loudspeakers. Hugh moved his presence into the room, watching as the usual suspects arrived, along with some newcomers he hadn’t met yet.

“Alright, everyone, time is short, so let’s get this meeting moving along,” Agent Smith advised. Admiral Nix was still the senior commander, but Smith’s duties had morphed into him becoming their government liaison. When everyone had settled down, he resumed.

“First off, I’d like to introduce Captain Brubaker, he’ll be our new Marine liaison, and his boys from the First Marine Expeditionary Force will be rotating in next week. This should give us a mix of forces to match any of the conflict types we’ve seen so far.

“Great, make sure someone locks up the liquor and crayons,” Captain Tremaine joked.

“I’m surprised they let any branch other than the Air Force participate in this fight, after all, you guys are the ones most experienced with sitting down for a living,” Captain Brubaker shot right back. There was no animosity in their barbs, just warriors trading their traditional insults.

“Enough of that, gentlemen, from what I understand, Mr. Smith has some news for us,” Admiral Nix said, stopping the banter. Hugh had word that something big was brewing.

“Thank you, Admiral. Let’s get right in it. We have a heads up from intel that the Ximkas attack announcement should hit any minute. The Canadians stopped them cold, and I’m sure Hugh will have the same success. We’ve reviewed and run simulations based on everything we know about them, they’re a tough species and their mechs reflect that, but they can and will be beaten.

“On another note, we’ll have a representative from the newly formed Space Force arrive before too long. Their mission is being changed to focus on the threats we face with space combat in our core battles, but just like the rest of us, they’re learning a bit as they go. We’ll also be getting our very own intel analyst who should arrive within the week. It was decided that having a dedicated channel to intel for each core would not only allow us to get our requests there sooner but also give their people a better feel for what we deal with. Any questions?” Smith asked.

“With all the additional forces coming aboard, how will we determine which branch, and which units to bring for each fight?” Hugh asked. He knew that a Marine Expeditionary Force typically had an air arm to support their ground operations, but Hugh would be more comfortable with Tremaine since they had already fought together.

“I’ll make the final call, but will, of course, give your recommendations some weight. We need to cycle through both officers and men to get as many of our forces experienced in this type of fighting as we can. The simulators are fine, but it’s not quite the same as it is against actual opponents,” Admiral Nix said. Hugh didn’t necessarily like it, but the man was in charge and Hugh had confidence in his judgment. Any further discussion was interrupted by a system prompt.

The Ximkas Hegemony has initiated hostilities for the control of Earth system px51a2. Prepare for pre-battle negotiations.