War Core, Chapter 11.

Chapter 11.

“Looks like we’ve pushed them back, good work everyone. Let’s build up our forces again and see if we can take the initiative from the enemy,” Hugh said over comms to his soldiers. The fight for the forward base had been costly, only a single battered T-7 and one infantry mech had survived. His continuing stream of replacements making their way over from the command post would refill the ranks before too long. While they had suffered losses, the destroyed mechs from both sides of the conflict were his for the taking and would provide a nice boost to his resources.

Hugh took some time to reorganize his drones. After some experimentation, it seemed they worked best in squads of five drones each. Any more than that on a larger task, such as building a new structure, made the units get in each other’s way, causing them to work inefficiently. On gathering tasks, the drones would work fine independently but tasking an entire squad of drones would ensure the area was harvested more efficiently.

With fifteen drones currently in operation, Hugh considered building another squad of them, but he had a feeling he would need all the unit points he could scrounge up for his combat mechs. Instead, he reorganized what he had, tasking a squad to stay at the resource gathering station where they moved the supply containers that slowly filled up there back to the command post for processing. A squad would stay at the command post so he could build and upgrade structures without waiting for the drones to make their way over from some other task. His drones weren’t the fastest in long-distance travel and that was a defect he hoped would improve with future upgrades.

A full squad of drones was assigned to the forward base. Initially, they would repair any damaged mechs and structures before salvaging the destroyed mechs strewn about after the battle. It was a long way back to the command post from the forward base, so he instead set the resource gathering station as a dropoff location. The drones at the forward base would drag the salvaged mechs to the resource station and then return to the forward base. His squad of drones at the resource station would haul back the salvage to the command post.

Resources were flowing in at a nice pace, so Hugh set his factories to automatically replace any losses. He settled in to wait as resources flowed in and mechs were rebuilt. Once he got to ten infantry mechs, Captain Tran asked to push out into their previous positions in the city, providing a line of defense that was strong enough to push back enemy recon teams and fall back to the defenses of the forward base if things got too hot. Hugh knew he would need to go on the offensie at some point, but to do that, he needed to know what they were up to.

“Captain Tran, what are our chances of sending some infantry mechs through to get a peek at what the enemy is doing?” Hugh asked.

“Normally, I would advise we slip a team in, but without any recon specialized units, I think we risk the chance of feeding our forces to the enemy piecemeal. I don’t want to give them any free kills and salvage. The best option would be to push through the city in force, one block at a time,” Tran replied.

“My T-7 mechs aren’t much use in the city but can help with any strongpoints the enemy has set up,” Captain Cartwright added. It was true that infantry was the king of city fighting but having supporting armor would make a difference.

“Alright, I’m bumping up our total infantry force to thirty mechs and we’ll stay at three T-7’s, which will nearly max out my unit points. I would like to save resources for upgrades but can delay it if you think we’ll need more troops than I’ve already assigned for the push,” Hugh said.

“I always want more, but those numbers will give us enough firepower to test the enemy defenses. Let’s leave five infantry in the forest on each flank, that will keep the enemy honest and slow down any large push, giving us time to react,” Tran offered. It made sense, so Hugh tasked the next infantry mechs coming off the line to reinforce the flanks, bring each side up to a total of five. That left him twenty for the fight in the city, along with his three light mechs.

Even though it would eat into his limited resource pool, Hugh went ahead and upgraded the infantry with the basic targeting package and the improved armor upgrade. Hopefully, the improvements would limit casualties in the coming fight. While he waited for the rest of the infantry to come off the assembly line, he had the drones stationed at the forward base upgrade his existing infantry. He prioritized the infantry that would participate in the assault. Once the assault team was upgraded, the drones would head into the forest and upgrade the forces there. Hugh could see that having a separate drone squad dedicated solely to upgrades would be a must have in larger conflicts. The drones went about their task as, one by one, fresh infantry and replacement light mechs were turned out by his factories.

The enemy had stopped their random reconnaissance probes, the act had cost them more than they had gained by it. Hugh wondered what the Krixnas were up to but wasn’t willing to sacrifice his infantry to find out. His opponent still hadn’t made any moves by the time his assault force was ready to move out. Hugh set their first objective as a line directly in the middle of the city where a cross street cut the city in half east to west. His forces moved in a rough line, the pace slow as they cleared each building they passed, not wishing for one of the horrifying Krixnas mechs to pop out at them unexpectedly.

Just as the infantry stepped off in groups of five, the Krixnas made their appearance. It was only a couple of their infantry units, firing from the rubble, the inaccurate beams from their tentacled faces did little damage. His forces flushed them out from a distance, there was no reason or desire to close to melee range with the creatures. The light mechs proved they were still useful in the close confines of the city. When a Krixnas infantry mech began to fire, a light mech would respond and blast away the enemy cover. Their heavy fifty caliber rounds were able to punch through the concrete-like material the city was made from, killing, or suppressing any infantry mechs hiding inside.

They reached their objective without any serious opposition, having killed off a half dozen Krixnas for a loss of one of their own. The enemy light mechs hadn’t shown themselves, but having already faced one, Hugh knew that more were out there. It also appeared that his hasty recon before the fight hadn’t located all the available resources. His infantry that had been searching the rubble for holdout Krixnas discovered three more of the large crates. His drones from the forward base were ordered to stop what they were doing and gather the precious material. It wouldn’t do to have an enemy counter-push take them from him.

“Sir, if I were the enemy, I’d make a counterattack to stop our advance. It might be best if we hold up here where we have good cover and open lines of fire for our units,” Captain Cartwright suggested. Tran agreed and that convinced Hugh to pause his advance. With the recent windfall of resources and the salvaged mechs, he was up to 547 resources. His command post and the resource station were still producing, while the last few salvaged mechs would also be brought in. Confident he would have at least a little leftover after the upgrade, Hugh activated his drones to begin construction of a level two command post.

This time, the building stayed the same size and instead the drones focused on the area around the command post, as well as implementing some improvements to the machinery and comm gear inside. Around the perimeter of the command post, the drones began construction of a low wall. The wall was made of the same concrete material the city had been constructed of and would provide at least some cover from small arms fire. A single large metallic gate was placed in the middle of the north wall, providing access to the command post area. His new wall encompassed all the buildings he had constructed and allowed for some future expansion. Hugh pulled up the current battle status, glad to see he could now upgrade his other buildings.

Current Battle Information.

Resources: 86.

Structures:

Command post, Level 2. Unit points (240/350). Upgrade to level 3 requires 750 resources.

Units:

Construction drones (15/15).

Defensive Units:

Infantry mechs (15/15).

Combat Units:

Infantry Mechs, level 1 (30/30).

Light Mech, level 1 (3/3).

Other Structures:

Barracks, level 1 with armory addon. The barracks may be upgraded to level 2 for a cost of 250 resources.

Light mech factory, Level 1 with the machine shop addon. The light mech factory may be upgraded to level 2 for a cost of 350 resources.

Available Structures.

Signal tower (0/3). A signal tower requires 50 resources to construct and provides an additional 50 unit points.

His upgrade to the level two command post had an unexpected benefit, his drones were working a bit faster than before. Drone movement speed was now on par with his infantry mechs and if he wasn’t mistaken, there were even more strange tools attached to their bodies. Another five defensive mechs came off the line, thankfully not costing him any additional resources or unit points. Once built, the defenders spread out along the three sides of the wall that were open to enemy attack—the southern wall was up against the zone boundary and couldn’t be attacked. The defensive wall came up to chest height on the infantry drones, allowing them to fire over the top while maintaining some cover.

After the upgrade, he didn’t have enough to also improve the barracks, instead opting to bump up his total number of infantry mechs, which looked like they were going to do the heavy lifting in this fight. While they still only required five unit points, his upgraded infantry mechs did take seven resources to build.

“Captain Tran, I’ve queued up another ten infantry for you. That, as well as upgrading the command post to level two has pretty much wiped out our resources for now,” Hugh advised.

“Roger that sir, assign them here to the city if you could, that will thicken our line a bit if the enemy hits back. Maybe the next batch can be used to upgrade our forces in the forest, that will be our weak spot,” Tran replied. Hugh did as the captain asked, assigning the ten new infantry mechs to the force holding the center of town.

“Contact sir, enemy probing the eastern forest,” one of the soldiers holding that area reported. Hugh shifted his viewpoint and could see the unmistakable shapes of Krixnas infantry scuttling toward his infantry in the thick forest. His forces opened up on the enemy, scoring hits and taking down a pair before they were forced to pull back as more and more of the enemy infantry emerged.

“We’re getting overrun!” The soldier called out in panic as the enemy swarmed around their flanks, the Krixnas were faster and better at navigating the forest than his units. It made Hugh wonder what the Krixnas home was like, did they evolve to live in a forested area?

“Contact in the western forest, enemy infantry in strength, falling back,” A soldier to the west advised. While the infantry mechs had some flexibility in movement, they couldn’t leave the area they were assigned to. Hugh ordered them back to the forward base, it was no use letting them get overrun.

“Sir, we’ll need to fall back as well unless we want our main forces cut off,” Tran said. Though he hated to do so since they had finally started to advance, Hugh ordered them back to the forward base as well. They would make their stand there, using the newly repaired fortifications to their advantage.

The main force made it back to the forward base without incident. Hugh had been worried that the enemy would try to strike the flank of the main army as they retreated, but at least for now, they seemed content to stay in the forest and pursue the fleeing infantry stationed there. He lost all five mechs on the eastern flank and three of the five on the west. Enemy numbers were unknown as it was hard to count them in the thick trees, but if he had to guess, they were thirty or more on either side. The enemy had been pumping out units, but were they sacrificing quality for quantity? Once out of the confines of the forest, which favored the Krixnas, he would find out.

Infantry mechs spread out along the trench line of the forward base, Captain Tran stationed four each in the corner bunkers and the rest were spread evenly around the base. In the center of the base, his three T-7 mechs stood, their turrets slowly spinning while the operators looked for targets.

“We’ve got a strong defensive position and with our accuracy advantage, we should be able to stop an infantry assault cold,” Captain Tran announced as the last of his infantry settled in. Movement was seen in the tree line and a couple of enemy infantry mechs broke from the cover of the trees to head toward the city. It looked to Hugh like they were going to try and surround his forces.

With a crack, the main gun on one of the T-7’s fired, the round blowing apart the body of an enemy infantry mech as it tried to hide in the rubble of the city. Movement was seen to the south as the enemy closed the circle around the forward base. Was there some kind of siege mechanic to these battles that he wasn’t aware of?

“What are they up to?” Captain Cartwright asked. They were all confused as they could see enemy movement all around them, but there was enough cover for the enemy that they couldn’t tell where they might be massing for an attack.

“I’m not sure, but they’re taking their time with attacking us,” Tran replied. Movement at the edge of the forest caught Hugh’s attention. Streaming out of the southern edge of the forest were dozens of Krixnas infantry. They hadn’t been taking time to set up an attack on the forward base, they had bypassed it and used the forest for cover while they set up an attack on his command post.

Over sixty Krixnas infantry mechs clattered their way toward him and the only thing standing in their way was a short wall protected by fifteen AI controlled defensive mechs.