War Core, Chapter 28.

Chapter 28.

“I hope that you enjoyed your leave, Major Logan. The GCA doesn’t tell us what happens when you’re given leave, but I understand it’s a good experience,” the admiral said. Hugh tried to talk about Harmony Station and the body that had been created for him, but when he started to, nothing came out of the speakers on the table. Very well, they wanted to censor him, but it would just make for a bigger surprise when he showed back up from leave one day, retired, and in the flesh. Sadly, the fact that the GCA had censored his efforts led Hugh to believe that no human core had reached retirement and had their body reconstructed, despite the rumors Valery had heard.

“It was great, I was even able to interact with another core while there, the Russian core Valery Akalov,” Hugh told them, the system allowing for that bit of information to be passed along.

“Great, I don’t know how that works, but were you two able to discuss anything about the battles?” The admiral asked.

“Yes, a bit, our time was limited, but he did give some good advice on how to build my core as I level. He recommended I initially focus on two things, some economic upgrades, and one of the combat lines,” Hugh said.

“Cool,” Maddison started. “Games are all about controlling the resources, the more efficient you can gather them, the better your chance of winning. Units come second, you don’t want to have a great economy and fall so far behind in unit upgrades that you never get to take advantage of the resources,” she finished. Unlike many of the other times he had interacted with his gaming advisor, this time, Maddison was giving the room her complete attention. The CIA analyst, Smith, jumped in next.

“Good advice, Maddison, but you have to remember that these battles aren’t video games. The games give us good insight and often do resemble the mechanics of modern video games, but you need to remember that games function within the limitations of the technology of our time. The GCA created battles can be very different, and what works in a RTS game, may not have the same results on the battlefield,” Smith said.

“Yeah, we get it, but overall stuff is fine, some of the cheese strategies can be a bit wonky. I’ll get into that later in my one-on-one session with Hugh,” Maddison said.

“Good, let’s get back on track. I’m assuming you leveled up after your last battle, we should discuss your upgrade options, if the GCA didn’t force you to choose already,” the admiral said, taking control of the meeting before it went off into too many tangents. It was a skill all good senior officers had.

“This time, we actually get to discuss the upgrade before I’m forced to make a choice. I have the usual perk for winning the battle, and another one for winning the overall campaign. Let me list out what’s on offer and you can tell me what you want to drill down into,” Hugh said. The connection to the conference room now included a large screen where he found he could display text. With a thought, Hugh was able to copy over the upgrade options he had been given.

Select a category of perk.

1. Unit upgrades.

a. Air Units.

b. Land Units.

c. Sea Units.

d. Space Units.

2. Structure upgrades.

a. Durability.

b. Efficiency.

c. Defenses.

3. War Core upgrades.

a. Reconnaissance.

b. Resource.

c. Construction.

d. Communication.

4. Opponent penalty options.

“Opponent penalties are new, open that one up,” Maddison said, leaning forward in her seat to get a better view. Hugh pulled up his options displaying them for the group.

Opponent Penalty Options. Select a penalty path and initial restriction. Once a path is chosen, as you gain levels, new upgrades along that path will be revealed. Only one path can be chosen. New paths may unlock as your level increases.

1. Resource Sabotage. Your opponent will receive 5% fewer resource crates on their area of the battlefield.

2. Unit Sabotage. Your opponent’s units will randomly face either a production speed reduction of .5% or a weapon malfunction option of .05%.

“Not too exciting, but I suppose at higher levels the penalties could be significant,” Hugh said.

“Yeah, this could be a viable build option for the long run, but you wouldn’t see much of a result until you reach a higher level,” Maddison added.

“Wouldn’t you just be better off improving your own War Core instead of sabotaging the enemy? If you somehow boost production with an upgrade, that will surely cancel out any of these penalty options,” Smith offered.

“Good point, I think we’re better off going with straight core upgrades, focusing on resource gathering or construction benefits, rather than trying to penalize our opponent. I also want to get started on upgrading some of our units, but which type of unit should we focus on?” Hugh asked.

“As far as units, I’m sure nobody would be surprised that I’d say infantry,” Captain Tran said.

“Strangely enough, I agree with him. My air units can turn the tide of battle and having them upgraded can be critical, but air units, space units, naval units, and higher tier mechs aren’t always available. Infantry has the highest chance of being present in a battle and any upgrades you do to them will nearly always be useful,” Captain Tremaine offered.

“Heavier mechs will have a greater impact as battles progress, so I’d say go with armor,” Captain Cartwright offered. It was a good option, and Valery had apparently done very well with a heavy mech focus.

“Even though I’m and admiral, I’ll admit naval and space units are used the least utilized in the battles we’ve seen. Go with a ground unit, and either a structure or core upgrade path of some sort,” the admiral said.

“It’s your choice, Hugh, we’re here to advise, but as the War Core, you make the final call. Your counterpart on the east coast, yeah there is another US core out there, he’s gone with a wider variety of upgrades, but I can see that focusing on a particular line could be more powerful,” Smith said. His mentioning the other US core was good to hear. Hugh wanted to believe that their failure to mention the other guy was more due to lack of time on their part, rather than some kind of subterfuge.

“Who is the other core, and can I talk with him at some point?” Hugh asked.

“We can arrange that; his name is Reggie Clay and he was a retired police officer in the NYPD before he was selected. It can be a challenge to line up your schedules, it seems one of you is typically in a battle most of the time. I’ll do my best to get you guys communicating. We should be sharing any knowledge we can,” Smith said.

“Good, I’d like to get his take on all this. Now, before I get sucked into another battle, we need to decide on upgrades. I think I’ll start on the infantry line to begin with, and let’s look at the other upgrade path we want to focus on. I started on the resource chain, but with only one perk selected on that line, now would be the time to change our minds,” Hugh said.

“Keep with resources, they’re always important,” Maddison offered.

“Any objections?” Hugh asked the others, who either seemed to agree with her decision, or didn’t feel strongly enough about another option to object. With no objections, Hugh opened the resource upgrade tab, this time he was offered a pair of choices.

Resource Upgrade Paths. Choose one path to focus on, once selected the other paths under War Core Upgrades will not reopen until level 10.

1. Reprocessing Efficiency. Gathering up the detritus of the battlefield is often a critical portion of resource gathering. With this upgrade path, more resources can be gathered from each destroyed mech brought in for salvage. The chance of finding old wrecks on the battlefield will also increase.

2. Supply Crate Boost. The random supply crates found on many battlefields will now contain a bit more salvage than before. In addition, more resource crates have a chance to spawn randomly in your initial zone of control.

Hugh had hoped the choices would be easier, or that at least one would improve the natural resource gathering of his command post, like what happened with his first upgrade. It looked like going deeper into a single line locked out the others until he reached a higher level. The other US core must have just been selecting the first option of each path to prevent any lockouts. Hugh would be interested to see what level this Reggie Clay was and how each of the upgrades affected his core.

The two paths offered to him for resource upgrades were similar, and he could see them evolving in several different directions as the perks continued to flow in. Supply crates were a big boon when he found them on the battlefield, but they were limited in number and once he and the opponent had gathered them all up, no more would spawn. The upgrade made it seem there was a chance more would spawn inside his area of the battlefield but searching for them in the middle of a fight could be a distraction.

Destroyed mechs would always be around in a fight, and even though they gave a puny amount of salvage, there were always new ones to be found as his units and those of the enemy were destroyed. There was always a chance that he would be pushed back during the fight and the enemy would recover more of the destroyed mechs than he could, but the way the perk was worded led Hugh to believe that they wouldn’t get extra resources from the wrecks unless they also had the same perk. He also liked finding the remains of old battles, the debris fields were more plentiful and usually not near the focus of the battle, allowing him to harvest them with little risk.

Reprocessing Efficiency upgrade perk has been selected.

“Good choice, now what unit do you want to start focusing on?” Maddison asked.

“I think infantry is the way to go. After selecting the second tier on the resource path, other options under that whole category of War Core upgrades are locked out until level ten. I suspect that going into the unit trees will face the same restriction, but I don’t mind digging into infantry upgrades until level ten, if nobody else has an objection,” Hugh said.

“I think that’s wise; we can revisit if we want to pursue another unit option when you get to level ten,” Admiral Nix added.

“Oh, don’t forget about the upgrade lines being individual,” Maddison said. Hugh was a bit confused, but Smith jumped in to explain.

“Yeah, that’s another quirk of the GCA system. As you level up, your options for upgrade will evolve. Say you go three tiers deep into infantry selections, you’ll find your choices there are different than what other cores will have. It seems the GCA will tune the upgrades to fit your fighting style, while occasionally throwing out some curve balls. Sadly, that limits how much benefit we get from looking at other cores and their builds,” Smith said.

“Sure, it wouldn’t be like the GCA to make things easy for us to understand. Let’s go with infantry and see where it leads. I suspect the first tier will be something pretty basic, and the more unique upgrades will be deeper into the research tree,” Hugh said. He selected Land Units and the following options presented themselves.

Land Unit Upgrades.

1. Infantry.

2. Light mech.

3. Medium mech.

4. Heavy mech.

5. Support weapons.

Support weapons were intriguing, and Hugh wondered if it would upgrade things like the machinegun teams, or if was a whole new category of mech. While it was tempting to dig into that path, he stuck with infantry. The confirmation display gave a bit more insight into what the upgrade entailed.

Infantry unit upgrades selected. Your infantry units will now be produced 1% faster and when the armory is constructed on your barracks, you will be granted a level 1 upgrade of your choice for free. Further investment into infantry perks will open new options and improve the ones already given.

“That’s fine, I didn’t expect you would be given anything too powerful considering this is the first tier of the upgrade path,” Captain Tran offered.

“I think your upgrade percentage for this choice will improve the more you delve into infantry perks,” Maddison added. Hugh had figured the same thing, and any build efficiency upgrades were welcome. If the enemy went a different route, he could eventually out produce them with cheap infantry units, making an early rush strategy a more viable option.

“Good, with all your upgrades selected we can move on with more training. I’d first like you to get together with each of your liaisons for some one-on-one time. Start with Captain Tran since we’re going with an infantry focus,” the admiral ordered. Hugh was glad to work with his sub-commanders, relishing a chance to get to know them and learn how they could work together better.

“Any other questions before we leave you alone with Captain Tran?” Smith asked.

“I’m sure there’s a million of them, how many you can answer, or will be allowed to answer, is a different story. For now, the only thing that springs to mind is which aliens I’ll be likely to fight. I know the Krixnas were the first aggressors, but I doubt they would be the only ones bordering our sector of space,” Hugh asked.

“Good question, let me pull up the star chart again,” Smith said. Earth and the territory still controlled by it were displayed. Instead of the clean globe of controlled space around the planet, the borders were jagged and irregular where enemy forces had made inroads into human territory. Smith highlighted the United States and the territory the two cores were responsible for. Hugh’s territory was changed to a different color as Smith populated known alien locations. A rainbow of colors splattered the display, showing every potential foe that bordered our territory.

“Let’s zoom in on your defense sector,” Smith said, the screen zoomed in, removing some of the confusing jumble of information.

“So, it looks like the west coast butts up against four races, why have just the Krixnas attacked me so far?” Hugh asked. Of the four alien races, the Krixnas had about sixty percent of the territory bordering Hugh. They were supposedly a new race added by the GCA, just like humanity was.

“Yeah, the Krixnas have only been active a short time, and before that the area was a neutral, non-accessible sector. There are a still a few of those out there, areas where an intelligent race lives, but haven’t’ developed to the necessary level to prompt their addition to the conflict. The others that border our territory are the Madrix, the Ximkas, and a single sector controlled by race called the Ssath,” Smith advised.

Hugh could see that the Madrix territory overlapped with what the east coast core was responsible for. The Ximkas, whoever they were, looked like they were driving deep into Canadian territory, but had taken a couple of systems from Hugh’s sector. Ssath were a race Hugh wouldn’t forget anytime soon. Their territory only touched with a single system in Hugh’s control, one on the original boundary of human space, showing they hadn’t been attacking earth at all. Maybe he was going to get a chance at some payback for being eaten at some point?

“What’s up with the other races, why aren’t they attacking right now?” Hugh asked.

“The Madrix are, they’re just attacking a sector controlled by Reggie Clay on the east coast. When that campaign is over, I would expect one of their cores to make move on our territory, see this area?” Smith asked, pointing out the system the Madrix were currently fighting over. If they won there, it placed them only a few systems from what was labeled as a critical system. When Hugh selected that system, he could see it contained a world that had potential for terraforming. If the other human core held off the assault, the path to the valuable system would next lead through Hugh’s territory.

“What are these Ximkas? They border a lot of territory with me, but it looks like they’re not making many moves to push in,” Hugh asked. The race had pushed back the Canadians, but left Hugh’s border alone.

“Yeah, they’re an odd bunch, a race that resembles a cross between a turtle and a scorpion. They’ve pushed mostly into Canadian territory, driving toward the habitable world they have under their control. I would expect you to see an incursion into our territory whenever the Canadian core stops them, they use our space to get around any protected systems that are successfully defended,” Smith advised.

“The Ssath are the dinosaur looking people, right?” Hugh asked, surprised his question wasn’t filtered.

“Yeah, how exactly did you know that? Don’t worry about answering that, it’ll probably just get blocked. Well, the Krixnas are relatively new, the Madrix and Ximkas are tough opponents who have been at this longer than us, but the Ssarn are in a whole other league. Take a look at this,” Smith said, pulling up where Ssath space touched Hugh’s area, it was a single system, and out there in the middle of nowhere. Red filled the star map, showing the overall spread of the Ssath. The territory they controlled was immense, easily thirty of forty times that which Earth controlled.

“I take it they’re the big dogs, but why not take out a small fry like Earth if they’re so powerful?” Hugh asked.

“That’s likely because their cores are too busy with other battles to worry about our sector of space. We hold a few good systems, but there are much richer pickings out there. The territory they cover is likely many times larger than what you see, the map can only display what we know, and our intel is limited beyond the area we control. We best leave them alone and try not to even appear on their radar,” Smith advised.

“Now you tell me,” Hugh thought to himself.

“So, for the immediate future, I can expect another attack from either the Madrix, Ximkas, or the Krixnas,” Hugh said.

“Correct, I suspect the Krixnas will attack again shortly. You’ve blocked them out of the system they attacked earlier, but they still have several other points they can jump at us from,” Smith said, highlighting seven other systems that bordered Hugh’s territory, and another two that bordered the Canadian core’s zone.

“What about a counterattack? We beat the Krixnas once, why not take a shot at expanding our territory by taking what they have?” Hugh asked.

“That’s the eventual plan, for now, the world’s cores are focused on stopping the assaults, and the governments have agreed to just retake lost territory before putting too many cores on the offensive. The more we take, the larger our border becomes and the potential to encounter new and more powerful races increases. Just look at this,” Smith replied.

The screen zoomed back out to show all of Earth’s territory. A date was displayed at the bottom and Smith ran forward from the time Earth first was added to the GCA’s control. He had seen this before, but this time, the individual colors denoting each race were displayed. As time moved forward the colors became a blur as territory was won and lost by the various aliens. The enemy’s bordering Earth’s territory shifted hundreds of times as they fought not only against, us, but against each other.

“I think I get it, if we push back, we don’t know who will come at us next,” Hugh said.

“Yes, while I’m confident we could start to eat into Krixnas territory, it might only serve to open us up to new conflicts with deadlier races. For now, we focus on stabilizing our front, holding the line before offensive operations begin. Once they do, we’ll counterattack to take back what we’ve lost, but only up to the previous borders we were granted. Once we achieve that, the various governments will decide if it makes sense to pursue taking new territory,” Smith said.

While he spoke, Smith highlighted several of the larger bulges in human space where invaders had made a lot of headway. Arrows from the various cores showed where plans were made to retake the lost territory. Hugh had several leading from his space into the divots carved out by the Madrix. In his zone of control, they had made the most headway. The Ximkas would also be a focus of his eventual counterattack, the efforts would aid the Canadian core immensely.

“That’s probably enough detail for now, I don’t want to eat up your training time,” Smith said. The others got up to leave the conference room, it was time for Hugh to get to work.