Chương 56: Paths to Victory

Academy Hill, Vidako Imperium Stellarum January 13, 2848 As it turned out, it took quite a lot. Arc quickly found out that, seen through the lens of a war-game, the Na'xir infantry were just flat out better than imperial marines. In addition to being nearly a meter taller and significantly heavier, the Na'xir ground troops were fast. Moving on four legs gave them better balance and more stability, and they could keep fighting even after losing one of those limbs.

Iceni clocked them hitting speeds upwards of thirty kilometers per hour, while carrying their rifles and breathing apparatus, and moving over torn up ground and piles of corpses. They weren't quite certain how fast the things would move at an unloaded, dead sprint on a straightaway, but it would almost certainly be faster than a human. As a result, when the Na'xir made that first charge, the speed with which they crossed the open terrain between the two forces obviously took Arc's simulated units by surprise.

He suspected that detail was taken from actual battle data, and that it hadn't gone well for Admiral Wai's troops. Flying Na'xir swooped down on buzzing wings, taking pot-shots with their yellow laser rifles and then scattering in the face of return fire. The heavier ground troops came on, shooting as they closed, and then stabbed about them with their bayonets when they got into melee combat, where their superior size, speed, and reaction time made short work of human marines.

Arc saw a single Alu'kan marine catch a Na'xir's rifle, yank it out of the alien's grasp, and then stab the thing to death, but that was an isolated and short-lived victory. The massive creatures wearing laser cannons on their battle harness scuttled forward more slowly, clearly content to let infantry clear the way for them. If an imperial marine got too close, their scorpion-like tails stabbed down, quicker than the human eye could follow.

Arc actually had to pause the simulation, run it back, and replay it at half speed to get a good look at the first strike one of the things made. The massive stinger didn't just pierce the Torean marine – it tore the man in half, punching most of his lower torso down into the ground and leaving the dismembered legs and torso to tumble in two opposite directions. The Torean thrashed for a moment, reaching for his fallen rifle, while a tangle of intestines slid out onto the ground.

But it was those laser cannons which were the greatest threat. Nothing else the Na'xir had shown, to this point, really posed a threat to Arc's squad of four mechs. As he watched, one of the Na'xir heavies took two shots in quick succession at Arc's Outrider. The first laser hit on the upper right thigh, immediately melting through the scouting mech's light armor, and causing it to wobble on the damaged leg structures.

The second scored a line across the Outrider's torso, tracing a scar of molten armor over to its left shoulder, where the ammo belts which fed its autocannon lit off. The explosion tossed the Outrider aside like a rag doll, flinging it through a squad of marines. Still, imperial marines were well-trained.

Even while the Outrider's pilot rode an ejection seat up into the sky, BA-50s spat bursts of self-guided flechettes, portable rocket launchers targeted the mech-scale, scorpion-like weapons platforms, and tripod-mounted infantry scale lasers lanced green lines of light into the oncoming horde.

"I want you crunching data on which weapons are most effective against each type of troop," Arc told Iceni, as he walked around the perimeter of the hologram, watching the action from every angle.

"Tag the mech equivalents as 'Na'xir Heavy Armor.' They're close enough to a grav tank." Grav-tanks don't have claws, fangs, and those horrible tails, Iceni pointed out.

"It doesn't really matter," Arc explained.

"I'm certain fleet command has already figured out what to call everything, but Professor DeVault wants us dealing with this blind. We just need a label for convenience, right now." He paused to watch as the imperial mechs opened up on the swarm. Lasers, gouts of flame, bullets, and toroid-shaped plasma-discharges impacted all along the enemy line. For the most part, the autocannon rounds were ineffective, but Arc continued to be impressed by the Janissaries' flamethrowers.

That kind of weapon wasn't good for much in mech to mech combat, but against these particular aliens, he had the feeling it was going to become a workhorse. Just when he thought that the line was going to hold, the ground collapsed beneath the left-most Janissary. The fifty-five ton mech dropped half a dozen meters, arms waving for balance. Somehow, it managed not to topple over immediately, mostly, Arc guessed, due to the pilot's decision to let go of their rifle.

He was about to give the command for the pilot to stay there and act as a kind of fixed gun emplacement when Na'xir infantry began swarming up out of the sinkhole, shaking off loose soil in sprays of dirt. They crawled up over the Janissary's armor like flies on a carcass, and began stabbing the bayonets affixed to their rifles into the seams between the armor panels. Arc leaned forward, squinting.

"They're trying to pry the ceramic plates off," he realized.

"Huh. Iceni, have the other Janissary wash this one off with the flamethrower. Clear the Culverin to start bombarding their back line." At his command, the second assault mech turned, extended its right arm, and covered its partner in a billowing cloud of flame. The marines pulled back away from the edge of the sinkhole, doing their best to contain the Na'xir infantry, while the flamethrower cooked the alien warriors who'd been scurrying over the trapped Janissary's armor.

From well behind where Arc's marines and Pronghorns fired into the Na'xir troops, his single fire-support mech let loose for the first time. Arc had been saving the heaviest asset he had for an emergency, and the seventy-ton mech hadn't used a single round of ammo until just then. The mechanical claws on the Culverin's wide feet moved outward, and then down, digging into the earth to secure it in place.

Behind the mech, the grav-field generators attached to its rear firing platform hummed to life, raising the missile racks up into firing position at the cost of an enormous battery drain. Fully half of the machine's dozen long-range missiles shot up into the sky on plumes of fire. Three short-range missiles blasted away from the fire-and-forget pack mounted to the hardpoint on its left shoulder, which fell away automatically as soon as the missiles were clear.

The short range missiles hit first, right in the middle of the Na'Xir front lines. At the point of impact, for ten meters in every direction, the alien soldiers were torn apart by a blast wave of shrapnel. Then, the Culverin pilot took a shot each with the IMT railgun mounted on their right shoulder, and the portable railgun rifle cradled in the mech's arms.

Each one pushed the mech back, causing its clawed feet to scrape through the topsoil, digging furrows through the earth, but the slugs impacted, one after the other, on the scorpion-like Na'xir which mounted laser cannons. The impacts cracked the monster's carapace, sending chunks of dark chitin tumbling away in sprays of yellowish-green blood. After the second railgun shot, the first of the Na'xir heavies fell over onto its side, dead. The long-range missiles came down at the back of the enemy line.

This wasn't the best use for them, Arc knew – they were really meant to follow the targeting solutions provided by an Outrider's sensor suite. But he'd rather a bit of over-kill than a lost battle. It was a simulation, and none of these soldiers were real, so it didn't truly matter – but he hated to lose. It took a bit for the missiles, fired practically straight up, to bring themselves around in a curve.

It was a bit of a delicate thing, as well – while a hundred meter blast radius in orbital combat wasn't very large, here on the ground a misplaced impact could easily tear through Arc's own troops, doing as much damage to the imperial soldiers as to the enemy. For that reason, he'd set the targets well behind the enemy rear. Six explosions rocked the base of the hill, in a staggered line.

From each, a blast wave of shrapnel, dirt, and whatever the LeShaii used to pave their roads roared out over the Na'xir's back line. Enemy fliers were swatted down from the sky as if by the vengeful hand of the progenitors, and none of them got back up. The heavier infantry were bowled over and sent tumbling forward, when they weren't ripped to chunks. Even the heavies were rocked, having to brace under the impact and stop firing for a moment. This story originates from a different website.

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"Send the still-mobile Janissary in," Arc commanded.

"I want to see what a plasma blade does to those heavy-armor units." A moment later, the marines, the Janissary, and the Pronghorns counter-charged, while the Culverin remained behind to take carefully chosen shots with its railguns. Not long after that, the Na'xir were in full retreat back to their hive. 𝝮 Arc spent the rest of the class running the simulation from different points.

He did get his troops within sight of the hive, and he did get a visual on the oxygen generator installations, though by that point he judged it too costly to try an actual assault with his remaining forces. The Na'xir hive itself looked like nothing so much as an enormous lump or mound, striated with rings and whorls of gray and tan.

It had subsumed most of the LeShaii city, and Iceni's measurements placed it at roughly the size of one of the imperium's larger sports stadiums, covering more than twelve acres of land. In height, however, Iceni informed him that it was nearly sixty-stories high. And those vines growing all around the exterior, with the dark green leaves? The AI pointed out to him. They're taking in enormous amounts of carbon dioxide and pumping oxygen out into the air.

I log a six percent increase in oxygen concentration around the hive site between the starting time stamp of the simulation, and the maximum extent. More flamethrowers? Arc sighed.

"If it wasn't right in the middle of a city that the LeShaii might want again someday, I'd just pound it into oblivion from a few kilometers away. Or from orbit, if we didn't care about the world. But we don't even know if there's survivors in there – whether or not they take prisoners. Alright, let's run this again. I want to change up our loadouts." Iceni paused for a moment. I don't have permission to make that change without Skuld's approval, she told him. Hers, or Professor DeVault's.

"Let's ask, then," Arc said.

"The worst she can do is say no." A moment later, Skuld's shimmering form appeared in the holographic projection.

"I'm sorry, cadet," the AI said.

"I can't allow you to make any changes which would give you an unfair advantage over the other cadets."

"We already beat the simulation," Arc said.

"I mean, we didn't destroy the hive, but that wasn't the point. You said this was a probe, which means it was meant to test the enemy and get information for a later strike. We did that. We beat the initial scouting patrol, then beat the response team, and got eyes on both the hive and the oxygen generating vines. Now I want to go back and try different things to see what works best." If he hadn't known better, he might have said the artificial intelligence was surprised.

She must have been partitioning her attention, and only now reviewing his performance.

"Well done," Skuld said, after a moment.

"Most students lose to that reaction force. Very well, cadet. I'll approve any loadout changes that could have been accomplished with the supplies taken to the ground by the Galerius's drop-ships." Her image flickered, and disappeared. The first thing Arc did was pull out every autocannon he could. While the railguns seemed to have no problem penetrating the carapaces of the Na'xir, the twenty-millimeter guns just didn't have enough power behind them.

He replaced them with light lasers on the mechs, and beefed up his marine squads with more tripod mounted infantry lasers and rocket launchers.

"I really want these Sakers loaded with more short range missiles," he grumbled. Then, he re-started the simulation. He treated each trial like a test—skipping time to get right to the point of engagement, and then letting Iceni track the statistics on how effective each different weapon was. For the most part, the results confirmed what he'd suspected: the Na'xir ground troops were extremely resistant to impact damage. Even a direct hit from a CrCoNi Alloy War-Club didn't necessarily kill one of their heavies.

By the time the cadets were called back to take their seats together again, with Professor DeVault at the front, Arc thought that he and Iceni had put together a pretty solid profile of Na'xir combat capabilities. Not as good as anything fleet would have, by this point, but he was proud of what they'd done in only a single class session. DeVault waited until everyone had taken a seat, and only then spoke.

"Thoughts?" There was a moment of silence, and then Cal raised his hand.

"I'll admit, it took me by surprise when the ground fell out," he said.

"They got my Outrider that way. How did they even do that?" Several other cadets nodded from their seats as DeVault explained.

"There appears to be a variety of Na'xir worker that tunnels," he said.

"We believe that they reinforce the passages they actually care about with webbing, but they can also bring a tunnel right up close to the surface, where the weight of our mechs will collapse it."

"And then they come swarming out," Sloane Emonstone-Granville said.

"I ended up dropping a couple short range missiles on my own Janissary just to close the hole in my lines."

"Flamethrowers," both Arc and Kievit Red Crest said, at the same time. He turned to look, and met her eyes as she examined him in turn.

"Go ahead, mole-rat," the older cadet told him.

"Explain."

"Short-range missiles will destroy our own mechs," Arc said.

"But they can stand up to flames for a bit, while the Na'xir warriors seem vulnerable to heat. You can get the infantry off while keeping your mech at least somewhat functional."

"Good," DeVault said.

"Both of you. I will point out that Cadets Red Crest and Sandhurst both beat the simulation today, as well – though Cadet Third Class Kievit had a much faster time, on her last attempt. As fast as any time I'm aware of, by the way, counting fleet war-games." The Torean girl beamed.

"I ran it over and over until I found the perfect approach," she bragged.

"There's an ambush point in the forest just south of the road where you can really get set up nice." She glanced back to Arc, her eyes alight with competitive fire.

"You must not have found it."

"I wasn't looking," Arc admitted.

"I was running weapons tests."

"Yes," Professor DeVault said.

"Cade Sandhurst made an interesting request – for permission to change weapons loadouts."

"I asked for that, too," Christina Fortin said.

"Ah, but the difference is that he only asked once he'd already beat the scenario with the default loadout," Devault pointed out.

"And at that point, Skuld and I saw no reason not to grant permission. What did you learn, Cadet?"

"We have a file, sir," Arc said, and shared it with the entire class. All around him, cadets either let their eyes unfocus, or pulled out their tablets to scan through the testing data that he and Iceni had compiled. DeVault laughed with clear glee.

"Red Crest, Sandhurst, ten merits each," he declared.

"Good job, both of you – if very different approaches. But we're out of time for the day; class dismissed." Rather than immediately leave, Arc made sure to catch Ireti Ọlatẹru's eye. From across the room, where she'd been quietly speaking to Cassie's cousin, she nodded, and when Bhaskar left, she remained behind. Just as the other students were almost cleared out, however, and Arc was about to get up, Kievit Red Crest slipped over a row of seats into his aisle and gazed down at him imperiously.

"I haven't had much competition since the class of '47 left," the Torean declared. Arc caught a whiff of that same scent that Vee's feathers seemed to produce, now that she was so close: something fresh and citrus-y.

"I'll try to give you a run for your credits, then," Arc told her.

"Good." Kievit made a sort of trilling sound in her throat, then vaulted another set of seats and marched out the door.

"Looks like you just made another friend," Ireti said, as she walked over.

"More of a rival, I think," Arc said.

"I wanted to check with you and see if you'd found a Kestrel pilot for me."

"Finding him wasn't the problem," Ireti said.

"Convincing him to do it, that was the hard part. You owe me, Sandhurst." He stood up out of his seat.

"Fair enough. When can I meet him?"

"Tonight," Ireti said.

"Once you've gotten something to eat with your friends, come and meet us outside of the sim building. I've got us signed up for a slot at twenty-hundred. I'll bring you inside so they don't give you a hard time at the door."

"Can I bring friends?" Arc asked.

"Mmm-hmm, the more the merrier," Ireti assured him.

"Make sure you grab your tech crew, actually. I want to make sure they have a good understanding of what you've gotten yourself into."

"That's fine," Arc said.

"Cassie and I might have a surprise for him, too."