War Core, Chapter 31.

Chapter 31.

Hugh accepted command, noting that there were four buildings in various states of destruction under the control of his command post. There were also no resources, which would delay any repairs of the structures or his existing units. Taking stock of the damage, Hugh tried to decide where to focus his efforts.

Command Post, Level 3. Unit points n/a. There is no unit point restriction for this battle, the only restriction you will have are the limited resources to be found. Durability is at 3%. Repairs are required before this building will be fully functional.

Barracks, Level 3 with Armory addon. Durability is at 2%. Repairs are required before this building can be used.

Light Mech Factory, Level 3 with Machine Shop addon. Durability is at 4%. Repairs are required before this building can be used. This structure is slowly deteriorating, repair quickly to prevent further damage and eventual collapse.

Airfield, Level 3. Durability is at 6%. Repairs are required before the building can be used.

Just as he had been advised earlier, the command post was not producing its normal stream of resources. Repairing the building wouldn’t help that, so he would just have to gather what was available to him. The first priority would be the light mech factory, it was slowly collapsing, and Hugh knew he would need something other than infantry if he wanted to win the battle. Looking over the structures, he couldn’t tell why it was deteriorating and the others were not. It was another quirk of the system the GCA had in place to govern these battles.

When Hugh took over the command post, there were no initial batch of resources like he normally received. He would have to gather every bit of scrap if he wanted to build or repair anything. Hugh ordered his two drones to begin gathering up the mechs destroyed in the earlier fight, highlighting the area closest to the command post. He need some quick resources in order to stabilize the mech factory, once that was stabilized, he would focus on the command post to get it repaired. His pair of drones went about their work, scuttling over to the nearest casualty, which was the first light mech destroyed in their last skirmish. His forces had destroyed before it had moved too far away from the ruins. It took two drones to drag the oversized mech back to the command post.

While he waited to for the drones to finish their task, Hugh ordered a squad of infantry to do some recon on the plateau to the west. Movement had been detected and Hugh needed to know if he were about to be attacked. There also might be something there that he could exploit. Captain Tran had reshuffled the infantry squads, giving each seven infantry mechs to work with.

The selected squad would sweep past the northern boundary on their way to investigate the other plateau, Hugh was hoping they would locate the path leading to the next stage of the battle. He knew they wouldn’t be able to leave until the requirements of this stage were complete, but once he repaired the command post, Hugh didn’t want to waste extra time searching for the exit.

His construction drones dropped of the first destroyed mech, his damaged command post thankfully having no trouble breaking it down into resources. Typically, a light mech might net him anywhere from two to five resources based on how much of it was left, this one gave him six, telling Hugh the reprocessing efficiency upgrade was working. One drone was pulled from gathering battlefield scrap and sent to try and fix the damaged light mech factory before it deteriorated further. During the time it had taken the drones to drag over the first bit of scrap, the building’s durability had dropped to 3%.

The little drone went to work, clearing debris and rebuilding what it must have judged to be the most critical damage on the structure. His six resources dropped quickly as the drone worked, and by the time Hugh was out of resources, the building’s durability had improved to 9%. Sadly, the deterioration tag on the building was still active, meaning it would degrade while he waited for more resources to be processed. He left the two drones to continue with their task, turning his attention to the scouting force as they closed in on the unidentified mechs.

“Sir, we’ve got a weird one, it looks like some of those Frankenstein mechs are going to town on a debris field. I count one light mech and a dozen infantry, all of them are jacked up in some way,” Sergeant Landry advised. Hugh had called them zombie mechs before, old, damaged things that plied the debris field for parts to use for repairs and upgrades. He supposed that calling them Frankenstein mechs worked better, after all, in the old story, Doctor Frankenstein used body parts to create his monster, just like the mechs were doing to themselves.

The debris field was a good size, and the mechs there were a mix of Krixnas and human designs. A Krixnas light mech was the largest of the group, this one only having two tentacles for its face, and it was missing several of the small legs these mechs used to propel themselves. As Hugh watched, the light mech lashed out at one of the damaged Krixnas infantry mechs, destroying it and rooting around in its remains, searching for more parts.

“Creepy, just keep an eye on them for now and don’t engage. We need to rebuild our forces before we take them on,” Hugh ordered, setting the limit line for the infantry’s advance well outside of weapons range.

Time was ticking by as the repairs progressed on the light mech factory. When the durability finally hit fifty percent, the deterioration warning was removed. Hugh then focused his efforts on the command post. As much as he wanted to keep the momentum going on the light factory, he was going to need more construction drones, and to get those, he would need the command post repaired. Thankfully, it took a lot fewer resources to repair a building than it did to build one as the supply of battlefield wrecks was being depleted quickly.

“Sir, we’ve got something strange going on with the Frankenstein’s,” Tran advised. Hugh looked over to see the light mech going into a flurry of activity, it had just trashed five of the infantry mechs, a mixture of human and Krixnas models. It was using the parts to make itself bigger, evolving into a medium mech, complete with additional weapon systems.

“Do those tubes on its back look familiar to anyone else?” Hugh asked.

“Yes, it looks like those mortar launchers from the Krixnas landing craft,” Captain Tran confirmed. If their medium mechs possessed two of those launchers, they would be formidable in a fight. The Frankenstein version of the mech was a hodgepodge creation and while it had mounting points for two launchers, only one appeared functional.

“Captain, I wanted you to have light mech support before we faced these things, but I don’t think we can let that monster get any bigger. I’m ordering your forces up and giving you orders to clear that field of hostiles,” Hugh said. Issuing the commands in the system for Tran and his airborne troopers to carry out.

“On it, sir. Ok, boys time to show Major Logan what you can do,” Tran replied. When the other infantry squads rejoined the scouting party, the captain had the machinegun team take a position near the ridgeline of the plateau. It was barely inside range for the weapon, but the slope of the ridgeline was the only cover they would have from the plasma mortar mounted on the Frankenstein mech.

The other infantry spread out in a skirmish line, close enough to support each other, but far enough to avoid too many being hit by a single blast. Other than the single medium mech, another five infantry-sized Frankenstein mechs were still around. One squad was designated to handle the opposing infantry and the other three would assist the machinegun team with the medium mech.

Machinegun fire signaled the start of the attack, the heavier thirty caliber rounds started to connect, the gunner doing a skillful job of landing hits from extreme range. The infantry marched forward and once in range, they dropped prone and began to fire. Too bad they didn’t have any grenades; they would probably do well against the larger mech. The Frankenstein mechs responded immediately, lurching their way toward the soldiers firing at them. Hugh wasn’t too concerned; these things were slow enough that he doubted they would do much before his forces gunned them down.

Fire stitched down the side of the larger mech, the thirty caliber rounds penetrating on every over shot. The rifles from the infantry had a harder time, but the hodgepodge armor of the Frankenstein mech was being worn down quickly, allowing more and more damage through. The accompanying smaller mechs were easy enough to destroy, the squad assigned to the task was cutting them down without suffering any losses. A blob of plasma launched from the mortar mounted on the back of the medium mech. It was going to miss, those types of weapons weren’t really meant to be fired on the move, making a hit on his machinegun team unlikely unless the monster stopped to stabilize its firing platform.

“Big boy is down, light them up some more to make sure and then recon the battlefield,” Hugh ordered as the larger mech fell to the punishing fire. A few seconds of extra firing made sure none of these creepy mechs were going to reanimate and a squad of infantry patrolled the field to give Hugh a better look at what was out there. The ground was littered with wreckage, much of it smaller pieces that he doubted would give him much, if any, resource value, but there was enough scattered around for his drones to harvest that he should be able to repair the structures and replace his losses.

“Well done Captain Tran, let’s get most of the troops back to the command post, just in case there are any surprises. I also want a squad posted here at the debris field and one assigned to escort the construction drones as they gather everything up,” Hugh ordered.

It was easy enough to assign a squad to hold and defend a position but escorting the construction drones proved a bit more of an effort. In the end, he just assigned a squad to patrol that sector, the soldiers controlling the infantry understood what he wanted and would “patrol” next to where the construction drones were working. About the time he finished the makeshift workaround, Hugh found a new branch in the orders tab that did allow for a covering force to be assigned to a unit or location. He adjusted is orders, giving the squad assigned to protect the construction drones a bit more flexibility in how they carried out their task.

While he waited, Hugh organized construction drones into units, something he had neglected when he was working on the combat formations. The drones were less unit point intensive than his combat units, but they worked best in smaller teams. He ended up selecting five drones as the size of a standard team, allowing him to build or assign them to tasks as a group.

He hated the time he was wasting on getting the structures back in order, but this stage of the battle wasn’t going to flag as complete until was done with the task. One by one the drones brought in the destroyed mechs to be reprocessed. Once he had at least ten points of resources, he would pull a drone from salvage operations and have it work on repairs. It ended up taking nearly seventy resources to complete repairs on the command post. As soon as the building was completely repaired, the ability to construct more drones unlocked. Hugh queued up five groups, giving him a total of twenty-five to work with.

The first four drone squads were tasked with gathering up salvage while the final team, once it was constructed, would resume repairs on the other structures. Hopefully, by the time the last drone squad was built, the others would have gathered enough resources to prevent any delay in repairs. Two prompts appeared as Hugh finished up his plans.

You have completed the requirements for stage one. The path to the second objective is now unlocked. A bonus objective has been achieved; rewards are now being deployed.

Hugh could see a strange disc shaped aircraft streak overhead, dropping several supply crates. Parachutes deployed and they drifted down toward his command post. When the supply crates landed, Hugh ordered his nearest construction drone squad to gather them. It turned out that each crate held fifty resources, and with five crates in the drop, it would really jumpstart his repairs. Thinking of repairs, Hugh set a second task for the drone squad gathering up the crates. When they were done with their gathering, they would make their way around the infantry squads and perform any needed repairs. It was a whole lot cheaper to repair a mech than build a new one from scratch.

“Sir, we’ve got a new path that just appeared along the northern border,” Tran called in. Hugh shifted his view and saw a mech escorting one the construction drones had found a wide and winding path leading through the mountains in the north. It hadn’t been there before, and Hugh figured it must have appeared when he completed the stage. He was anxious to move on and hit the next stage of the battle, wanting to give his opponent as little time as possible to prepare. Despite his desire to get the fight moving, he couldn’t just let all the resources lying around here go to waste, so he would wait until he had gathered everything and build up his forces before moving on.

The other structures repaired on by one. The second to complete was the barracks and once it and its armory addon were completely fixed, Hugh received a prompt. It confirmed he was entitled to a free upgrade from the barracks as part of the infantry mech perk he had selected. He held off, waiting until the light mech factory was also completed, knowing that it unlocked more options for his infantry upgrade selection. It didn’t take long for the light mech factory to complete, and just as he suspected, the newly unlocked options were added to his choices for the free upgrade.

Standard Infantry Mech Upgrades. The resource costs are waived for the first upgrade selected.

1. Basic targeting package. This upgrade permanently enhances the targeting systems of your light infantry weapons, enabling higher accuracy under all conditions. The estimated accuracy increase is 10%. This upgrade requires 50 resources to activate. Once activated, drones would be required to improve any existing infantry units, while all newly created units will be built to spec with the upgrade already installed.

2. Improved heat sink mechanism. By improving the heat dissipation ability of your light weapons, the rate of fire is increased. This upgrade requires 50 resources to activate and will increase the rate of fire by 10%. Once activated, drones would be required to improve any existing infantry units, while newly created units will already have the upgrade.

3. Heavy barrel replacement. With enhanced materials, the barrels of your infantry weapons are lengthened and hardened, allowing for a 15% increase in range over a standard weapon. This upgrade requires 75 resources to activate.

The following upgrades require an active Light Mech Factory.

4. Enhanced armor protection. Additional armor plates are attached to your infantry mechs. The upgrade improves survivability of the units by an average of 15% but the additional weight will slow your infantry movement speed by 5%. This upgrade requires 50 resources to activate. Once activated, drones would be required to improve any existing infantry units, while newly created units will already have the upgrade. Units upgraded with enhanced armor require 1 additional resource point at creation. Updating units in the field requires 1 resource point per unit.

5. Plasma Grenades. These thrown weapons have an effective radius of five yards. Any mech or structure in the area of effect will take damage as a wave of plasma energy is released. This upgrade requires 100 resources and an additional 1 resource for every infantry mech produced or upgraded with these weapons. Replacement devices can be manufactured by your construction drones for 1 resource per pair of grenades. Please note that infantry mechs cannot carry more than two of these grenade types at any one time.

Being the most expensive upgrade, Hugh went with the plasma grenades first. He didn’t get any free grenades with the selection but saving a hundred resources in this type of fight was huge. He assigned the drones working on mech repairs to also be responsible for grenade production and distribution. He selected two grenades for each infantry mech and when they were used in a fight, that drone team would distribute replacements if he had the resources to build them with. The airfield was the last structure to be completed, and when it finished up, he received another notice.

Your command post has been upgraded, the Drop Beacon of the Vanquished can now be utilized.

Excellent, Hugh was excited to try out the drop beacon, but it would have to wait until it would make a difference. The drop beacon looked like a small radar dish that was slowly turning atop the command post. Not the biggest visual queue, but one that might give an opponent the idea he had some special upgrades to his force. Hugh made a note to look for any strange upgrades on enemy structures, but of course, it would be a while before he could recognize what was normal for a Krixnas building. Maybe the intel folks back home could figure it out?

His drones remained busy, the squad assigned to repair the structures was now shifted to gathering duty, slowly picking the Frankenstein mech field clean of any useable resources. With all his structures repaired, Hugh could see the option to upgrade them was greyed out. He couldn’t alter them past what had already been done. His priority now the repairs were made, was to replace his losses. Once they were replaced, he decided that that he needed some heavier firepower, adding a platoon of light mechs to his build queue. If any resources remained after the mechs were built, he would see about some more upgrades before moving on for next stage of the battle.