War Core, Chapter 35.

Chapter 35.

Do you wish to assume control over the command post? Yes/No.

Hugh hit yes as the second infantry mech arrived in a flash. His point of view shifted to the command post, and as he settled into his new home, Hugh could feel automated processes beginning as they did at the start of a normal battle. Five construction drones began to be produced on the assembly line and in the queue after drones were his defensive garrison forces, a total of twelve infantry mechs. It wasn’t much, but with the Krixnas already making their way toward him, it was better than nothing, given how slow his units were arriving. Hugh examined what he had as far as buildings went.

Command Post, Level 3. Unit points n/a. There is no unit point restriction for this battle, and you are only limited by the number of resources you can find on the battlefield.

Your command post has been upgraded with the Drop Beacon of the Vanquished.

Barracks, Level 3 with Armory addon.

Light Mech Factory, Level 3 with Machine Shop addon.

Airfield, Level 3.

Resources, 150.

Defensive garrison, (0/12).

Construction Drones (5,10)

Thankfully he had some resources to start with, and Hugh activated production on the factories in order to bring his existing forces back up to strength. The Krixnas wouldn’t take long to reach him, at least their flying units were holding back, content to hover over the ground forces as they advanced. Hugh could see they had brought over sixty infantry and seven light mechs. All five of the Krixnas air mechs also accompanied the attacking force.

There was nothing resembling fortifications to fight from, so Hugh just highlighted the area around his command post and ordered his troops to defend it. His resources ticked down as the barracks and light mech factory began construction. It would be logical to produce some air units to defend against the enemy air mechs, but with the enemy only having five aircraft and the limited usefulness outside of air units in ground combat, Hugh felt he would be better served with just upgrades and reinforcements for his existing forces.

As the first construction drone walked off the assembly line, Hugh pulled up the purchases in his interface. He had bought some extra units and the two defensive towers while on Harmony Station and now seemed like the perfect time to deploy them. The defensive turrets had to be constructed, so the first construction drone would be tasked with building them right behind the line of defenders that was slowly coming together.

“What’s the situation, Sir?” Captain Tran asked.

“We’ve got a straight-up command post battle on our hands. Unfortunately, the Krixnas have built up a powerful force and are already on their way. I’ve got a couple of defense towers I can build and I’m constructing them just behind your infantry. When they get closer, I’ll also be able to bring some allied forces online to help us,” Hugh advised. He had two squads of those Durhass medium mechs that he had also purchased from the station. The interface acknowledged he wanted to deploy his purchases, and a timer began to count down from two minutes. Hugh was required to designate an arrival point for the Durhass, so he selected the area just in front of his defensive line.

“Two minutes for the allies to arrive, they’re medium mechs from a race called the Durhass and they will be AI-controlled units. I have no idea what they look like, so just tell the soldiers to not shoot anything unless it’s a Krixnas unit,” Hugh ordered. The officers confirmed and Cartwright joined them as his light mech arrived. The second construction drone was almost complete, and that one Hugh tasked with repairing his damaged units.

The next unit to arrive was one of his construction drones, Hugh instructed that one to begin construction of the second gun turret. His first drone was halfway finished with its turret, it seemed these purchased items built much quicker than something he made from scratch. The drone dropped the damaged infantry mech it was carrying and got to work. More units teleported in the previous zone as others walked off the assembly line while the enemy neared weapons range.

Hugh thought about using his Drop Beacon of the Vanquished but wanted to save something for later in the fight. If things got too difficult, he would use it, but for now, he would hold the drop beacon in reserve. Range overlays were activated, and Hugh watched the enemy close in. The first gun turret finished and even though the weapon appeared to be the same fifty caliber one that his light mechs used, this one had a bit more range.

The first turret fired, its round missing the target at maximum range. A check on the second turret showed it was nearly complete and should join the fight shortly. As far as ground forces, he only had nine infantry and two light mechs so far. More were jumping in and another infantry unit was leaving the barracks now. His last construction drone was being made, and after that, the defensive garrison would start to be produced, but the AI-controlled units weren’t very good.

His light mechs joined the fight as the machinegun team teleported in. The units were arriving just behind the command post and it took them a little bit of time to make it to the defensive line. The aircraft now surged forward, their weapons spitting out bolts of plasma toward his forces as they bypassed the defensive line and made straight for his command post. Hugh shifted the turrets to engage the aircraft as the machinegun team did the same.

A green flash announced the arrival of the first squad of Durhass units. Their medium mechs walked upright and were roughly humanoid-shaped. Four arms jutted from their torso’s, each equipped with a crushing claw. Hugh found the summoned units added to his interface and he ordered them toward the defensive line. They were slightly taller than his light mechs but were much more heavily armored, which he supposed fitted their melee preference. Despite being melee-focused, they also brought some ranged firepower as a heavy machinegun caliber weapon on their shoulders began to fire at the attacking aircraft.

The incoming aircraft didn’t try to dodge the fire, which led Hugh to believe the Krixnas had received AI-controlled units as their reward for doing whatever it was they had done in that mysterious passageway that had opened up. His second squad of Durhass mechs arrived just after the first. They were grouped in squads of four mechs each, making eight weapons that were trying to hit the incoming aircraft. Some of the flyers shifted fire to the new threat, both sides exchanging rounds with the flyers having a much higher hit rate.

Despite the higher hit rate, the Durhass were well protected, the first hits fizzled against a green shield. The shields could handle three or four shots before collapsing, but even after that, the mech's heavy armor kept them in the fight. Unlike his mercenary units, the air mechs were much more lightly armored, and each infrequent hit easily punched through their light armor. The Krixnas commander must have overridden the orders on the air mechs, as they once again shifted their fire to the command post, hovering just overhead.

Pain wracked Hugh with each hit, and the durability of the command post began to drop. A drone began to make repairs to the command post, but the damage was accumulating much more quickly than the repairs could handle. Hugh hit the point where the pain became everything, and he was unable to focus on the fight going on around him. He didn’t recover until nearly a minute later when the pain started to recede. A single damaged air mech remained, trying fruitlessly to destroy his command post as the Durhass and other units at his base poured fire into it. The air mech went down, adding to Hugh’s woes as it crashed itself into the command post in a final effort to damage him.

His durability was down to twenty-eight percent, way too close for comfort, and it was a struggle to overcome the pain enough to survey the fight going on around him. The defensive line had broken, his forces were being overrun by the superior numbers of the Krixnas. More units were being produced, but they and the units still jumping in weren’t arriving fast enough to change the tide of battle. Hugh ordered the Durhass to attack, using his purchase to plug the hole long enough to reorganize things.

The defenders on the line fought hard, making the Krixnas pay a steep price for every kill. As Hugh watched, one of the last infantry units on the line charged a Krixnas light mech, detonating a plasma grenade when he was close, taking himself, the light mech, and a nearby Krixnas infantry unit down in the blast. His soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division were living up to their reputations. This was the unit that had faced down three of Hitler’s SS Panzer divisions late in the war, eight thousand men against over forty thousand of the best Germany had. The division stood strong in the face of overwhelming odds then, and today, their namesake was upholding that tradition.

Numbers finally overwhelmed the last of the units on the defensive line, but as the Krixnas reformed to finish off Hugh’s command post, the Durhass hit them. The Krixnas lived for this kind of fight, one where their plasma charged tentacles would tear through the foe. Human mechs wouldn’t have lasted long, but the Durhass units were also built for this kind of fight, and even though they were AI-controlled, they were medium mechs, able to stand up to immense punishment compared to the infantry and light mechs they tangled with.

While the fight went on, Hugh began to gather the forces coming off the assembly line and jumping into the zone. A final defensive line was created just behind the short wall protecting the command post, and while the Durhass mechs battled, Hugh’s numbers increased. A pair of drones were dispatched to the arrival zone to begin repairs on the damaged mechs there, while the others completed repairs on the command post. Both his gun turrets were down, overrun as his defensive line had fallen.

The Durhass mechs held, between shields and reinforced armor, they could usually get ahold of and crush any Krixnas before they did too much damage. But as the shields failed and the armor began to melt away, the medium mechs began to fall. One by one they were brought down by the superior numbers of Krixnas, but for each Durhass mech that fell, they took three or four Krixnas with them. When the last Durhass had fallen, the Krixnas force had been depleted down to eighteen infantry and three light mechs. The attackers seemed to hesitate, as if not sure whether they could overcome the growing numbers of defenders, especially given the ferocity of the humans and their allies.

Someone must have given an order, and the Krixnas continued their advance. Between new unit production, the last of the platoon jumping in, and repairs on the mobility damaged mechs, Hugh had assembled nine infantry, two light mechs, the machinegun team, and all twelve of the defensive garrison. The defensive garrison was outside Hugh’s direct control, but the limited AI controlling them recognized the threat and gathered the defenders behind the short wall surrounding the command post, their fire joining that of his other units. A battle at range favored the human mechs and the enemy numbers were whittled down as they approached. Before entering melee range, freshly replenished plasma grenades were hurled by the combat pod controlled units, his garrison troops sadly lacking those weapons.

Using a trick that he had learned from Maddison, as the Krixnas closed, Hugh ordered his human-controlled forces back, leaving the garrison to be sacrificed to gain the range advantage. She had taught him the gaming skill of leaving some expendable units behind to allow the more powerful ones to continue fighting. While the Krixnas tore through the garrison units in melee, Hugh’s infantry hurled a final volley of grenades, blasting apart Krixnas and garrison mech alike. The tide turned as Hugh’s forces opened fire again, the backs of their mechs scraping up against the wall of the command post as they fought.

The Krixnas commander had enough, and he ordered his units to pull back, trying to preserve some of his forces from the failed attack. Hugh had his troops pursue a short way, cutting down all but five of the Krixnas infantry by the time Hugh recalled them. He had some breathing room now, but the battle was far from over and while he had an impressive number of destroyed mechs to harvest for resources, the enemy was getting the resource trickle that he was not. In a long, drawn-out battle, Hugh would eventually lose the resource race. For now, he had more to work with than his foe and he needed to build up and go on the offensive, using everything he had for a single push.

His drones started harvesting wrecks and repairing damaged units. Hugh thought about producing more drones, but in the end, just kept just the squad of drones that had jumped over and the squad that had initially been produced at the factory opting only to replace casualties from the fight. More construction drones would speed the gathering of resources, but with all the wrecks being fairly close, the bottleneck was production speed, not gathering speed.

“Sir, what’s our next step?” Captain Tran asked.

“We need to take the fight to the enemy, but before that, I want to find out what’s in that passageway behind our command post,” Hugh said, highlighting the opening in Tran’s map.

“What do you think is in there?” Cartwright asked.

“Before the battle started, the GCA showed me an overview. The Krixnas had the same passage in their territory, and they sent troops to investigate. Something fought them inside, but when they emerged, they had received the five air mechs as a reward. Those things almost did me in, so hopefully, we’ll find something just as powerful. Now that we know there’s probably trouble waiting for us in there, we go in with guns blazing and limit our losses,” Hugh replied.

“Roger that sir, as soon as the platoon is reformed, we’ll head out. Are we going for any further upgrades or reinforcements?” Tran asked.

Hugh thought about it for a bit. The Krixnas would gather resources slowly, assuming they had already picked clean anything on their side of the battlefield. That meant they were likely to only deploy cheaper infantry mechs. Hugh would have an advantage with his light mechs, but why not expand on that advantage and get the secondary armament upgrade? It had a steep initial cost but the upgrade greatly improved their firepower at range, where his units fought best.

“We’ll upgrade the T-7’s with the coax thirty caliber weapon. After that’s done, we’ll build a second platoon of light mechs. When that’s finished, we’ll see what resources we have left, but I think there should be enough salvage lying about to go ahead and add another squad of infantry,” Hugh said.

“How about any additional machinegun teams?” Tran asked.

“No, we’ll be on the offensive and they take too long setup, we’ll just keep the one we have,” Hugh replied.

The machineguns were typically useful for both offense and defense, but the ones he had available at this tier were more like something from World War 1, heavy and bulky. Maybe higher-level weapons would be more portable, and it would then make sense to include them with every squad. For this fight, given his command post and other buildings were capped at level three, he would push resources into his other mechs. He also considered the armor upgrade for his infantry mechs, but the reduced mobility was too much of a downside.

His drones and factories were working away, and it wasn’t long before his forces had been replenished and while the extra platoon of light mechs and squad of infantry were being produced, Hugh ordered his force to investigate the mysterious passageway. With a squad of infantry in the lead, and the newly improved light mechs backing them up, they pushed forward. The passageway led to a narrow canyon, barely wide enough for three infantry or one light mech to fit down it.

The canyon went only a short distance, giving way to a small open area where three rock giant mechs waited. Without hesitating, Hugh ordered his forces into the fight, wanting to get them out of the narrow canyon as quickly as possible. The rock giant mechs responded as soon as the first infantry moved into the opening. These were a foe that Hugh and his commanders knew how to deal with. The first squad met the charging giants with a volley of plasma grenades. Ten explosions bracketed the giants, dropping two of them from leg damage and leaving the last one to stumble into his infantry. Rock-covered hands grasped two of his infantry, crushing them with a powerful grip even as the light mechs emerged, machineguns blazing away at the target. The combined firepower from the four light mechs and the surviving eight infantry brought the damaged mech down quickly.

Congratulations, you have completed a bonus objective and have received these mechs as a reward.

Hugh watched as four mechs walked from a cave on the far side of the clearing. They were larger than his T-7’s and were obviously of a human design.

“Captain Cartwright, are your men piloting these?” Hugh asked.

“Negative, they must be AI-controlled, but I do know what mechs they are. Those are our M4 Sherman medium mechs, and they look like the fully upgraded E8 variants. These have good mobility and a powerful main gun,” Cartwright said. Hugh could detect the disappointment in his voice, the man would much rather pilot one of these bad boys instead of the light mech he was in.

The new arrivals were AI-controlled as the captain predicted. They were also fully maxed out with upgrades, which Hugh appreciated. In addition to a powerful main cannon, each mech had a fifty-caliber machinegun mounted above the turret. A thirty-caliber machinegun was mounted coaxially along with a second thirty-caliber weapon mounted in the hull. A light shield generator would provide some protection before the mech would be required to rely on its moderate amount of armor. They walked on four legs, giving the mech an almost spider-like look. He ordered his forces back to the command post. It was time to launch his all-or-nothing attack.