War Core, Chapter 10.

Chapter 10.

“Sergeant Mendez, your pod is a go, button-up soldier,” Admiral Nix ordered over the commlink. Mendez was still not sure he liked this whole operation being under some Navy officer, but so far, Admiral Nix had left them alone when it came to ground engagements. The technician assisting him attached the last few connections on his immersion suit. Designed by the aliens and manufactured here on Earth, the suit was uncomfortable and tight in all the wrong places. Thankfully, once he was plugged into his combat pod, he felt his mech, not the suit.

“Give ‘em hell Sergeant,” the technician said as the lid on the pod slowly sealed him in. Before the pod closed completely, Mendez reached out and tapped the unit badge that he had painted on the side of the pod for good luck. The blue, red, and yellow triangular badge of the First Armored Division stood out against the flat grey paint scheme of the pods. He had positioned the badge over the row of green activation lights on his pod so that it shone on the words “Old Ironsides”, the name of his division.

Connection established with combat pod a179. The combat pod operator is identified as Sergeant Mendez. This operator maintains ratings for infantry mechs as well as for light, medium, and heavy mechs. Synching occupant to light mech, type T-7, unit designation 03.

Soldier, prepare for battle.

Mendez felt the transition into his mech. Where before the was only the uncomfortable immersion suit and darkness, now he could see through the vision ports of his mech. The T-7 was stomping its way down a road, he could see it had been following orders to move to a forward base that was out of view. Spinning the torso around, Mendez could see the command post behind him. A solitary infantry mech left the barracks and began to move in the same direction he was heading. Off to his left, a resource gathering station was pumping away, a pair of drones waiting for the station to fill the resource crates they held.

The road he was on cut through a forested area and in the distance, he could see the ruins of some alien city. A hundred yards ahead of him, another infantry mech marched its way toward the rally point. Mendez couldn’t tell if they were replacing losses or if the new War Core was building up for a big push.

“Mech 03, proceed down the road but stop at the edge of the forest. I’m sending a map overlay to show you what’s going on as well as a link to our blue force tracker. We just captured a forward base outside the city and the Krixnas are making a play to take it from us. We have a few infantry mechs in the city delaying them until the replacement infantry can arrive. Our latest count pegs the enemy force at twelve to fifteen hostile infantry and a single light mech. When they deal with our screen and attack the base, I need you to hit them hard in the flank. Got it, Sergeant?” Captain Cartwright said.

“Roger that sir, I’ll be ready to engage on your command,” Mendez replied.

He took some time to review the map, watching as the icons for the three infantry mechs that were delaying the enemy went dark one by one. The forward base was positioned between the forest and the city, with good fields of fire. Sadly, there wasn’t much to defend the base in the way of infantry. A single infantry mech was stationed in each of the bunkers facing the north where the enemy was approaching from. Hunkered down in the center of the base was the Captains T-7, a drone just now finishing up repairs on it. In the open space to the south, another light mech was being repaired and it looked like the work was almost complete.

The only reinforcements he could see consisted of a single mech just now entering the base from the south and the infantry mech in front of him. Whether the other infantry mechs behind him would make it on time was unknown. Pulling up his mech specs he could see he was in a barebones version. The T-7 was armed with only a fifty-caliber main gun and didn’t have the hull-mounted light machinegun upgrade this mech usually sported.

Mendez pulled up his favorite interface configuration for this type of mech, not that there was much to do with the basic version. His main modification to the standard T-7 interface was a green icon reading “UP” that he placed in the center of his view, letting him know when the main gun was ready to fire. Ammunition selection was greyed out, only one type was available, a standard shot. The damage control icons were pushed to the side. From his previous experience, the mandatory pain feedback was a better indicator of damage than a flashing light.

The infantry mech in front of him cut through the forest to make its approach on the base. Mendez held his mech back a few yards from where the clearing around the city started, keeping out of the enemy line of sight until he was ordered into the fight. Behind him, infantry mechs were strung out along the road in intervals determined by how fast the factory could produce them. With the sound of a pair of T-7 main guns firing in the distance, Mendez realized that the fight was on.

“Engage the enemy flank, roll them up Mendez,” the captain ordered. Mendez fed power to his mech’s legs, walking it into the clearing before turning right and heading toward the swarm of enemy mechs assaulting the base. It looked like the second T-7 was back in the fight, limping its way into the base on a partially repaired leg. Nothing was wrong with its main gun, though, as the next round it sent blasted apart one of the enemy infantry mechs.

“What are those things, sir? Are the Krixnas going for the ugliest aliens award?” Mendez asked, disgusted by the tentacle faced foe. If this was their mech form, he didn’t want to meet a live one in a dark alley. The enemy infantry would fire a small laser-like blast every few seconds from a random tentacle, but the fire was ineffective against the fortified position.

The captain and the other light mech were picking off the enemy one by one as the three infantry mechs now protecting the base tried to fend off the attack. He was just entering main gun range when the enemy light mech made its appearance. The van-sized mech moved toward the forward base, before turning to observe him. At least he thought it was observing him, as the things didn’t really have a face to speak of.

“Looks like this one wants to dance, captain. I’m engaging the enemy light mech,” Mendes advised as the enemy mech began to surge forward on its mess of little legs. Stopping his mech to get a stable firing platform, Mendez lined up his shot at the center of the swirling tentacles. The main gun thumped, and Mendez could feel the slight recoil as his first shot hit a bit off-center. His round blasted off a face tentacle and lodged itself somewhere in the enemy’s lightly armored body. Mendez got back in motion, closing with the approaching enemy mech until his main gun was ready to fire once again.

“Keep your distance and engage from range Mendez, these Krixnas seem to like melee and our mechs aren’t designed for that,” the captain ordered. He acknowledged the command and began to turn the mech around, keeping the turret facing his target. The enemy mech was faster than his, and he had inadvertently helped it close the distance between them.

As soon as the green “up” indicator lit, Mendez stopped his turn, taking aim and firing off another blast of the main gun. This time he hit the worm-like body of the enemy machine. A few sparks and some smoke let him know the round had penetrated, but it didn’t destroy anything critical or hamper the monster’s movement in any way. Mendez completed his turn and began to retreat, trying to keep away from the glowing tentacles of the enemy light mech. To make things worse, a pair of the enemy infantry mechs also peeled off from the main attack, heading in his direction.

The pair of infantry mechs fired, one shot going wide and hitting the enemy light mech while the second hit the hull of his T-7. Despite the hull being armored, the enemy infantry weapon did nearly burn its way through. Their equivalent of an infantry rifle was powerful, if not very accurate. He had just completed his turn and began to move away when the enemy mech caught up to him. His mech lurched from the impact, the leg actuators squealing in protest as they tried to compensate for the weight of the enemy mech.

Glowing tentacles wrapped around the armored hull of his mech. Alloy melted and sizzled wherever the tentacles touched, slowly boring in toward the critical machinery protected by the thin armor shell. Mendez screamed in pain as what his mech was experiencing was transferred to him. It felt as if his stomach was on fire and the enemy was melting away his flesh, not the armored skin of his mech. Trying to fight through the debilitating pain, Mendez focused on depressing the main gun so it could bring it to bear. He fired another round that punched its way into the enemy mech at point-blank range. He knew he wasn’t going to get another shot as a stray tentacle melted off the end of his main gun, rendering it inoperable.

The frantic movements of the enemy mech began to die down as the last shot fired by Mendez finally did some serious damage to his foe. Pain still burned through his body and then intensified as one of the leg joints on his mech snapped under the pressure. The mech wavered and began to fall. This was his twelfth mission against various alien invaders and the first in a long time where he wasn’t under the command of a screaming lunatic. There was no way he was going to go out of the fight without a kill under his belt.

Using all the skill he had acquired by driving giant metal monsters around, Mendez maneuvered his fall so that the front of his mech came down onto the worm-like body of the still functional enemy mech. Mendez aimed the half-melted main gun at the center of its body. The hardened alloy of the weapon barrel punched through the enemy mech’s armor, driving deep into the monster.

The enemy mech gave a shudder and finally stilled, taken out of the fight. Looking back toward the forward base. He could see the limping T-7 mech was down for good this time, but the enemy was pulling back, leaving behind ten destroyed infantry mechs in their wake. Despite limited infantry support, the captain’s pair of light mechs had torn the enemy apart. They had lost one of their own light mechs and all but one of their infantry mechs, but they had held the base. For some reason, the captain turned his weapon toward Mendez and began to fire, the first shot coming dangerously close to him.

“What are you doing Captain Cartwright? Ceasefire, the enemy mech is down and mine will be back in the fight after some repairs,” he called out.

“I’m not aiming at you, keep still,” Cartwright said as he fired once more. The round passed within a foot of his mech and gave off a metallic clang as it hit something. Trying to turn his view around, Mendez could just make out the shape of an enemy infantry mech rolling off his T-7 with a smoking hole blown through it by the heavy machinegun round that the captain had fired. He had forgotten about the two infantry mechs that had been taking potshots at him earlier. Burning pain started again in the back of his head as the second infantry mech tore off a damaged armor plate and began to burrow its way deep into his machine. His vision faded just as another main gun round shattered his attacker.

***

In the darkened floor of the undersea base, a low chatter was heard from the soldiers waiting for their call to join the fight. Technicians moved about, ensuring the combat pods were in working order and guided the soldiers to their assigned unit. It wouldn’t do to have a tanker jump into an infantry pod or vice versa. It was a carefully orchestrated event at this point, the participants well trained in their tasks.

Each infantry soldier could, in a pinch, handle multiple infantry mechs at the same time. Fortunately, there were more than enough available pods and the main floor was only one of several, the others were placed deeper underground. This base housed only one of the country’s pod farms. Two other locations around the country held the pod storage for larger engagements and there was more capacity than they had every needed in a battle so far. Other countries that didn’t have their own War Core often contributed infantry soldiers as well when larger actions occurred. While humans couldn’t build a War Core on their own, they could build the combat pods. They required a connection to the War Core, but the satellite network that had been placed by the GCA allowed them to connect remotely from anywhere on the planet.

As the battle currently underway progressed, the pods would be disconnected when an operator's mech was destroyed. Usually, the operator was placed in a queue to control the next mech of a similar type that was constructed by the War Core. Sometimes, the GCA determined that a soldier was a casualty in the conflict, and they would perish, alone inside their pod, their bodies awaiting removal at the end of the battle.

In the dim light of the combat pod bay, the green indicator lights on the side of pod a179 blinked once before turning red.