War Core, Chapter 13.

Chapter 13.

The second stage of the Krixnas invasion of system es1422 is initiated. The attacker is making the following demands.

Krixnas Demands:

1. Max command post level, 10.

2. No unit type restrictions.

3. No combat pod support.

4. Command post starting level, 3.

5. Enhanced resource flow.

6. Additional starting structures.

7. No pre-fight battlefield recon.

The Krixnas were making the same demands as they had in the last battle. Since they’d won, Hugh figured the enemy didn’t want to mess with what had worked. Hugh thought for a while about his counteroffer. Perhaps Madison was right about the alien expectations. With that in mind, he also mirrored his offer from the previous battle.

Human Demands:

1. Max command post level, 0.

2. No flying units.

3. Combat pod support.

4. Command post starting level, 0

5. Limited resource flow.

6. No additional starting structures.

7. Pre-fight battlefield recon.

Waiting for the GCA reply was less stressful this time, perhaps due to his knowing how the process actually worked. He wondered about his Krixnas counterpart. Was he, she, or it feeling the same pressure as he was? Was their War Core some normal Krixnas roped in by the GCA or a hardened veteran? Would he ever get a chance to meet and talk with his foe? That was an interesting angle, talking with the enemy. If the GCA were all about limiting damage, why not have some type of diplomacy or negotiation? Instead of diplomacy, they forced war. The GCA actions made Madison’s theory about it all being a form of entertainment seem much more plausible.

A battle parameter decision has been made. The following restrictions and advantages are implemented for this fight.

1. Max command post level, 2.

2. No flying units.

3. Combat pod support is granted.

4. Starting command post level, 1.

5. Normal resource flow.

6. No additional starting structures.

7. Pre-fight recon allowed for a restricted timeframe of five minutes.

Battle world selected. You will be fighting on the planet Tyrifox 131. This is a land battle with varied terrain. Your pre-fight reconnaissance will begin when you arrive.

It appeared the GCA skewed the battle parameters more in favor of his requests this time. Perhaps they were giving a small concession to improve the chances of the underdog? Too bad they didn’t reveal their actual method for calculating the various options or even how they chose which conflict world was selected.

He didn’t have time to think about the GCA as he was pulled from Earth and hurtled out into space. The trip was longer this time and ended at another dead system. A small orange star cast a sickly light out toward the six planets in orbit around it. The fourth planet from the orange sun proved to be their target. The view closed in on the dark side of the planet, making Hugh wonder if light levels had any effect on his mech’s performance.

Hugh approached the war zone for this battle, an area slightly smaller than the last one. Once again, the two sides were symmetrical with markers for the command posts on either end of the zone. On one side of the map, strange red trees grew, having almost a sort of fur coming off their limbs instead of leaves. The other side of the map was somewhat open, a low ridgeline breaking up each half of the battlefield. At the top of the ridgeline, Hugh made out a resource gathering station as well as several resource containers that were scattered about.

More resources containers were found inside the forest, the GCA seemed to like hiding these for the participants to discover. Near each command post’s starting point were some resources crates as well as the remnants of a battle to salvage. Smashed up mechs littered the area past the resource crates. Between each command post and the ridgeline was another forward base, similar in size and shape to the one in the last battle.

The key would be to control the ridgeline to get a line of sight over most of the battlefield. Would the Krixnas assume he would be overly concerned about the forested area? If Hugh reacted logically to the results of the last battle, he would move slowly, leaving strong defensive forces where he could. No, this was the time to be aggressive, it was the time to take the battle to the enemy when they—hopefully—least expected it.

His pre-battle recon was over, and Hugh was pulled toward one of the bases. Again, he selected his base as south and the enemy base as north for a point of reference. Pulling up his base information, Hugh planned his next moves.

Current Battle Information.

Resources: 25.

Structures:

Command post, Level 1. Unit points (5/200). Upgrade to level 2 requires 500 resources.

Units:

Construction drones (0/5).

Defensive Units:

Infantry mechs (0/10).

Combat Units:

None.

Other Structures:

None.

Available Structures.

Barracks Level 0. The level 0 barracks requires 100 resources to construct.

Signal tower (0/2). A signal tower requires 50 resources to construct and provides 50 unit points.

It wasn’t much, but then again, his opponent would be under the same restrictions. Hugh first off ordered five more construction drones and assigned them and the five already under construction to gather the nearby resources. Three large crates and a pair of smaller ones could be seen from his base. There was also the field of destroyed mechs in the distance. Hugh thought he could detect movement around the mechs but couldn’t zoom in enough to verify. Confirmation of what defended the debris field would have to wait until he built some infantry.

The first drone moved out from the command post and tried to drag a large resource crate on its own. Unable to budge the heavy resource container, the drone settled for a smaller one, locking it in its grip and scuttling back toward the command post. One by one his drones were built, and the resource containers were gathered. Once he had gathered the first hundred resources, Hugh ordered a barracks to be constructed. His command post switched over to producing his defenders as the tenth construction drone rolled off the assembly line.

After building the barracks, he was left with 311 resources. All available resources in his area were gone and the only visible supply seemed to be the debris field in the distance. Now was the final chance to change his mind as to the overall strategy he would take with this battle. He would stay the course and try to overwhelm his opponent with an early, powerful strike. Hugh queued up a second barracks as well as one signal tower.

He would be left with 160 or so resources after building the new structures. That gave him enough to build 32 infantry mechs. By splitting the output over two factories, he would have his force ready in half the time. Knowing speed was the key to victory, Hugh was antsy as he waited for all the construction to happen. Thankfully, the low light didn’t seem to interfere with him or his drones.

“I’m in the fight, Major Logan. What am I looking at?” Captain Tran asked as he connected to the first infantry mech.

“Another symmetrical battlefield. Creepy red tree forest to the west and a ridgeline splitting the zone. There’s a debris field I’d like you to recon, something’s moving out there and we’ll need to secure those resources,” Hugh ordered, sending the distant debris field as Tran’s objective. As the other mechs came online, they would join him there.

“Roger that, let’s see what horrible things we find this time,” Tran replied and started moving toward his objective. Hugh had expected some comment over the twin barracks build, and he assumed it was the GCA’s doing, blocking his unit commanders’ input on the issue.

Hugh shifted his point of view to follow Tran watching as the shapes of old mechs revealed themselves. In the center of the debris field lay the remains of a truly giant mech. Only the top half of the mech was visible and the roughly humanoid shape bristled with weapons. Hugh could only hope he was able to build something similar at some point. As Tran’s infantry mech closed in, the figures he had seen moving among the debris became clear. Partially damaged mechs stumbled about, pulling parts from the debris around them in a futile attempt at repair.

“Seeing several mobile mechs, sir, potentially hostile. I suggest we wait for enough of a force before we move in to engage,” Tran said. Every few minutes another infantry mech would walk off the assembly line and move to join Captain Tran. As the second barracks came online, a pair of mechs at a time were being built. Once Tran had gathered a dozen infantry, he signaled he was ready to make a move on the debris field.

With his mechs spread out in a line, Hugh watched as Tran stepped forward. When they reached the outskirts of the debris field, the damaged mechs reacted. As one, they turned toward the approaching infantry and began to stumble and drag themselves forward. Many held weapons, but a large percentage had only various things they had scavenged up to use as bludgeoning weapons.

“Hold, fire at will, slow backstep,” Tran ordered. Hugh watched his infantry stop, fire a volley and begin to slowly walk backward, keeping their weapons trained on the enemy force. Hugh could finally get an accurate count as the zombie-like mechs continued to approach. He was facing just over twenty hostiles and the first volley had dropped three of them while damaging several others.

Compared to the Krixnas, these opponents were lethargic. Tran was able to keep his distance, firing a volley whenever his weapons were off recharge. After only a few minutes, the last of the zombie mechs were down. Tran ordered his troops forward, carefully watching for hostiles that might still be hiding amongst the wreckage. After his sweep was completed, Hugh could feel his War Core gain control over the area. With his vision pushed out, Hugh could see all the way to the ridgeline. What he saw there dashed his hopes for victory. On top of the ridge was a swarm of Krixnas infantry, moving about inside a series of reinforced bunkers, their numbers more than double that of his force.

“Sir, take a look at the central bunker on the ridge before you freak out too much,” Tran said, somehow picking up on Hugh’s stress. Hugh zoomed in as far as he could go, focusing on the control flag posted at the central bunker. The flag was showing as a neutral, but hostile force. These were GCA generated forces, not those of his enemy.

“You didn’t think all the neutrals would be mechs like ours, did you?” Tran remarked. It was true, he had made another assumption, reacting without carefully reading the situation.

“Yeah, you’re right, hopefully, they’ll give the Krixnas a big headache if they try to take those fortifications. In the meantime, I’m going to reinforce you as much as I can, the plan is to build up our force and make a push through the forest to the enemy base. If they’re doing what I think, they’ll have only limited forces and will be concentrating on base upgrades,” Hugh advised.

“Roger that sir, we’ll be ready. We may want to position a defensive line in the forest while we wait. That way we can keep the enemy eyes off the true size and composition of our force. We should also leave a squad of ten or so mechs here to protect our resources until we’re ready for a push,” Tran said advised.

“Sounds like a plan, stand by with most of your force in the forest until I reach the unit cap, that will be the time to launch our strike,” Hugh ordered. To speed up harvesting of the distant debris field, Hugh built another group of five drones. They didn’t take up much of his unit cap and gathering the resources faster would let him build infantry without any delays.

While his army was being built, Hugh assigned ten infantry to cover the debris field while the rest he placed in a defensive line covering the forest. The enemy would be hard-pressed to slip any recon forces through without his growing number of infantry finding them. Hugh pulled five drones off of gathering duties, having them build the second signal tower. With the two towers, his total unit points were capped out at 300. Taking fifteen away for the drones in operation, he could build up to fifty-seven infantry mechs. They were all level zero and didn’t have any upgrades, but like Stalin had once said, quantity had a quality all its own.

With two barracks working, he soon reached the unit cap. Hugh doubted the enemy had taken the time to build up a force as large as his. The whole battle would be decided by his risky gamble. It was time to go on the offensive. First, Hugh ordered the ten mechs covering the debris field to join the main force, every single mech would be needed in the coming fight.

“Captain Tran, I’m setting the area around the enemy command post as your objective. Move out and ignore anything except the enemy command post. Keep moving, don’t stop and fight, take their base down Captain Tran,” Hugh ordered.

“Moving,” was all Tran replied. Fifty-seven infantry mechs marched through the trees in the direction of the enemy. Each mech was being controlled by a live soldier he was responsible for. Was he wasting more lives, or was this gambit going to pay off? The fight was now in the hands of his infantry commander, it was up to Captain Tran.