War Core, Chapter 4.

Chapter 4.

Connecting War Core to planet x345z2. The scenario building cap is Level 1. Combat Cores are disabled for this scenario.

War Core, prepare for battle.

Hugh was once again hurtled through space toward another barren world. This time, he was approaching a planet full of deep canyons. The approach gave him little time to calculate a strategy, but it did appear the GCA was using the terrain to limit attack options and channel the forces into specific areas. Whether this was to simplify things for a new training mission or if it would be a permanent feature in other battles, Hugh wasn't sure of. The fact that this was real, and he was doing something to help his country and the entire planet was beginning to sink in.

He was heading toward a dead-end canyon where a small factory waited for him. Trying to get an idea of the terrain as he flew toward the factory, Hugh could see that there were two paths leading from his base toward where he assumed the enemy base was. Several smaller offshoot pathways would likely hold resources like he had gathered from his previous mission. His point of view landed at the same level zero type of command post that he had occupied in the familiarization training. His control installed in the factory and he could feel the machinery around him. Five drones were already queued up and building on the assembly line. After the construction drones were complete, the factory would start pumping out the automated defenders. While he waited for his drones to finish building, Hugh pulled up his resource information to see what he had to work with.

Current Battle Information.

Resources: 125.

Structures:

Command post Level 0. Unit points (5/100). Upgrading to level 1 requires 250 resources.

Units:

Construction drones (5/5).

Combat Units: None.

He now had an upgrade path for his main building, which would hopefully unlock more options for him. Since he began with more resources this time, Hugh wasted no time in ordering his drones to start on the barracks, the little guys got right to work with the same level of efficiency they had used in the previous training mission. While he waited for the building to complete, Hugh moved his point of view around, trying to get a feel for what the battlefield would look like and how far along his opponent was.

His command post was set at the end of a small canyon, protected on three sides by sheer cliffs and had only a single way for an enemy to approach. Several hundred yards from his command post, the canyon split into two paths. Hugh started moving down the path to the left, finding he hit a wall about a half-mile from his command post and couldn’t push his view any further. The canyon made a slight turn to the right at this point and he couldn’t see what was beyond the curve.

Moving back to the command post, Hugh found the barracks was nearing completion. He had twenty-seven resources available after building the barracks and queued up five infantry mechs for construction once the building was ready. He had to find some more resources before his opponent did, but five mechs weren’t going to cut it if the resources were defended by turrets again. With the trickle of resources coming in, it would take some time to build up to ten mechs, a number that had barely defeated the resource point defenses. For this battle, he didn’t think GCA would be granting any bonus material to him like in the familiarization scenario.

While he waited for his infantry mechs to construct, Hugh pushed his view to the right, hoping to find something of interest in that direction. Once again, he ran into a wall about a half-mile from his command post, that seemed the limit of his point of view movement. Somehow, he had been able to move it further when he had fought his last battle. The training wheels must have been on for the last mission and now he would have to do old fashioned reconnaissance if he wanted information on the enemy. He should be able to investigate the battlefield further now that his first infantry mechs were beginning to move down the assembly line.

He took some time to zoom in on the construction process, noting that the entire build from start to finish for a mech was only a few minutes. Unlike a normal assembly line, only one mech was worked on at a time, once it was finished, the next would begin construction. Perhaps upgrades would improve the process or even add a second line as there was more than enough room inside the reinforced building to house two or even maybe even three assembly lines.

Taking control of his first mech, he directed it toward the left, intending to see if he could follow it past the curve in the canyon. The infantry mech began to stomp its way across the canyon floor at the pace of a fast walk. It was another thing that he hoped would be improved by upgrading, the pace seemed especially slow to him since Hugh could move his view around the battlefield with amazing speed. While the unit plodded along its path, the available resources ticked up to five, allowing Hugh to add another mech to his queue. After thinking about it, Hugh went ahead and queued up a total of ten mechs to be built as the resources became available. As the second infantry mech finished construction, he ordered it to go along the path on the right side to get some recon around that bend in the canyon.

His command options for the infantry mechs were still the simple attack, retreat, and defend. By toggling attack, they moved forward and attacked anything in range. If they ran into something too difficult, he would just order a retreat. When toggling retreat to test it out, he noted that their default was to retreat to the nearest controlled location, but he could override it and designate any spot for them to make their stand. That might prove useful if there was some terrain advantage like natural cover for them to fight behind. For now, the GCA looked like they wanted to keep things simple. Perhaps later missions would have more terrain that could be utilized, he wanted to get some practice in for all the potential variables before he faced the Krixnas, whatever they were.

The mech on his left was rounding the curve in the canyon, thankfully, Hugh was able to follow it around the bend. Once they turned the corner, he ordered the mech to stop and defend in place. In the distance, a small base sat. At first, he thought it was the enemy command post, but this place was different. A low fence surrounded a single structure that resembled an oil well. When he scanned the location an information prompt appeared.

Resource gathering station 1. The resource gathering stations provide an additional stream of resources for your War Core to utilize. Resource stations like the one you are viewing have a limited pool of resources to draw upon. Until a faction engaged in the conflict captures them, the resources will be gathered and stored on site. A defensive force typically protects these sites, and the more resources the station has gathered, the stronger the defending force will be.

Around the resource pumping device were a half dozen mechs as well as a single turret like the previous ones he had faced. The turret was mounted in a tower right next to the resource gathering machine. A simple wire fence, a kind of futuristic cheap chain-link one, surrounded the area. With six infantry mechs and a turret, this might be too tough for his forces to crack unless he found some new resources. Hugh kept the mech there in the canyon, well out of range of the turret and the defending mechs. It would stay there, for the time being, keeping watch and making sure he had some warning if the enemy forces tried to take the valuable location.

Shifting his attention back to the mech on the right, it was just coming around the bend in the canyon. Something new met Hugh’s gaze as he saw the remains of an old battlefield. A score of destroyed mechs littered the ground as well as the broken debris from a larger machine. The new machine had walked on four legs and had an armored hull with a turret atop it. Much of the machine was melted or blasted away from whatever fate befell it and the infantry mechs. Whether this was decoration created by the GCA or the remnants of a real war, Hugh couldn’t tell. Rummaging through the debris were a dozen strange creatures.

These new creatures weren’t mechs and looked like the mutant rejects from a bad post-apocalyptic movie. The hunched over humanoids were dressed in ragged smocks with various bits of metal attached haphazardly in what looked like an attempt to provide some armor protection. Grunting and hissing at each other, the creatures rooted around the battlefield, scavenging various bits that caught their eye. Not the friendliest of folks, one of the creatures swung the corroded leg of an infantry mech at another that got too close to its prize. With a meaty smack, the leg hit the offender, leaving a smear of glowing pink blood where the makeshift weapon had burst the skin. The bulbous heads and misshapen limbs made it impossible to guess what these creatures had originally been. Information propped up as Hugh scanned the scene.

Debris field 1. You have discovered a debris field from a prior battle. The mutated remnants of the inhabitants of this world sometimes descend into the canyon to pick among the fallen mechs, searching for something useful. The mutants are hostile and will engage any units that approach.

There were a dozen of the things, but they looked much less dangerous to fight than the turret and infantry mechs of the resource gathering station. This would be his first target; one he had a chance to defeat with the mechs already produced. Taking a risk and keeping the one mech standing watch over the resource gathering station, Hugh ordered the others to advance and join up with the one observing the mutants. Enough resources had trickled in to produce a seventh mech while he had been doing recon, giving him six for the attack on the mutants.

His force pushed their way along the right-side path, moving to join the lone observer of the mutants. For some reason, the mutants ignored the infantry mech that was standing still, just outside of rifle range. They showed no fear or concern, but Hugh was worried they would decide the shiny new machine deserved their attention before too long. Believing he had a range advantage, the mechs were ordered to move just inside rifle range before being switched to defensive mode.

Once in range, the mechs began to fire at the mutants automatically. The first volley of shots slammed into the closest mutants, easily punching through their makeshift armor while tearing and burning into their flesh. With a squeal of pain, the injured mutants charged Hugh’s mechs, eating another volley of fire that dropped four of their number. With roars, hisses, and strange clicking noises, the entire mass of creatures attacked, brandishing makeshift weapons in their attempt to close into melee range.

Hugh knew that he wanted no part of trading blows with the strong creatures and ordered his mechs to fall back. With a whirr, the mechs turned and began to retreat, their torso’s rotating to keep the mutants under fire. Another volley lashed out, striking the fastest mutants. The creatures were remarkably resilient, pushing on with their charge despite the grievous wounds inflicted by the futuristic weapons his mechs wielded. With their greater speed, the mutants were able to overtake the fleeing mechs, but by the time they caught up, only a pair of them were still on their feet. Losing so many of their number didn’t cool their anger one bit and the final pair of mutant survivors made it into melee range, swinging their weapons at his trailing mechs.

With a heavy clang, the makeshift clubs hit the rear pair of infantry mechs. The simple weapons did a surprising amount of damage. One mech was out completely, its head smashed open by the force of the blow while the other collapsed into a heap when the blow caved in the side of its torso, limbs twitching feebly as the machine tried to right itself. The other mechs fired again, focusing their attention on a single mutant. All the rounds hit as even the simple targeting systems of his mechs were unable to miss at this point-blank range. Riddled by fire, the targeted mutant crumpled as the last one standing continued its attack. Another mech was crushed by the mutant before it was taken down. With a sigh of relief, Hugh ordered his mechs to occupy the debris field and go into defensive mode.

Knowing a bit better about how things worked, Hugh ordered his construction drones to gather the salvage in the area. Moving at the same slow pace of his infantry mechs, the drones made their way to the site, gathering the nearest salvage, which turned out to be his own destroyed mechs as well as the body of one of the mutants. Curious, Hugh watched their progress back to the command post. Each drone dropped off its load and headed out to gather more. They would keep working until the field was stripped of usable resources.

The resource total ticked up by two for each destroyed mech and one for the mutant’s corpse. He didn’t know if it was the bits of armor on the corpse or if his command post was somehow able to process resources out of biological material. The amount per unit was low but it was a positive increase in resources and there was quite a bit to be harvested out in the old battlefield. He would have a chance to rebuild his forces and see about either assaulting the resource point or working on some upgrades. Time was ticking away though, and five drones weren’t getting things done very quickly considering the long trek they had to make back and forth with their cargo.

Using up the incoming resources, Hugh queued up five additional construction drones, placing their priority over the infantry mechs. It was a bit of a risk since it took up valuable resources, time, and unit points. Still, he had a feeling that speed would be important in this mission and doubling his gathering rate for salvage was certainly going to help him in the long run. By the time the mutants were cleared away and salvage work was started on the debris field itself, Hugh had a total of nine drones working.

The debris field was slow to harvest, but it did have more in it than he had originally thought. As the drones cleared away the nearest destroyed mechs, they began to dig into the rocky soil of the canyon floor. After only going down a few inches, the remains of more mechs were found. The buried debris consisted of only smaller parts, but it gave him hope that he might find enough in total to enable him to take on the resource gathering station before his foe could.

Hugh queued up a total of eighteen infantry mechs, maxing out his unit points. With the steady supply of resources coming in from the debris field, he should have them built before too long. Eighteen should give him enough firepower to take out the gathering station and hopefully have enough of a force left over to impede the enemy should they try to take it out from under him. As he waited for his forces to gather, he sent the pair of infantry mechs that were guarding the debris field forward to see where the right-side passage of his canyon ended.

As he suspected, the passage came out at the opposite side of the resource gathering station. A third passage led off from the station, one he was sure led toward the enemy command post. The setup of these initial training sessions was following a simple pattern, one that he was sure would become more complicated as they progressed. Hugh wasn’t sure how many practice sessions he would have before his battle with Krixnas, so he needed to make the most of them.

Movement at the resource gathering station grabbed his attention. A pair of construction drones emerged from the station, scuttling over to the far side of the fenced in area. As he watched, the drones began to build a second turret, increasing the firepower he would have to overcome. Also, the first enemy mechs were making their appearance, a dozen now stood just out of turret range and waited. Hugh had only four mechs in total, much fewer than his foe. With neither side having enough troops to capture the resource point and defend against their opponent’s inevitable counteract, they were in a stalemate.

It looked like Hugh was going to have to pour resources into upgrading his base once the infantry mechs were built. This battle was going to take longer than the first one had, and it was up to him to come up with a strategy to break the stalemate.