Ravens of Eternity

29 Hell Week, Pt After the infiltration was completed, both wings went back to the encampment so that Jackal could report on his wing’s findings. He presented the data to the rest of the squad leaders unedited and unfiltered. He sent them all the raw information, from the recorded feed to their sensor readouts to their speculations.

At the same time, he projected his raw feed on one of the walls to help them visualize what they were reviewing over their DIs.

Eva watched their faces as they went through the intel. Their facial expressions grew from surprised to alarmed to afraid to depressed. Of course they would. Anyone who had seen the total number of enemy mecha would have done the exact same.

The room sat in silence for some time. They all needed to process the information in front of them. No-one knew where to begin.

After some time, Eva broke the silence.

“Thoughts?”

“I-I don’t even know,” said Sunflower. “That’s just so many.”

“More than double what I thought would be down there,” added Chengli.

“I know we’ve said it before,” said a squad leader, “but we can’t sit and defend against that. We have to go after them.”

.....

“Attack. Defend. Doesn’t matter,” argued another. “No matter what we do, they can take us out however they see fit.”

The situation looked grim for all of them. They faced an overwhelming amount of enemies, not enough numbers to attack, and their defenses could never last a full assault.

And they were only two cycles into Hell Week. They shuddered when they thought of what they’d have to endure over the next eight cycles.

When the drone mecha attacked earlier, it was only a squadron of fifty. It was taken care of quickly enough, but it signified the first of many incursions. In fact, the coalition of squadrons unanimously agreed that it was only going to get worse.

The enemy had the capability to send larger and larger waves with merciless resolve.

“I think,” said Eva, “our chances are better than you all might think.”

Everyone blinked at Eva. They wanted to believe her, desperately. But having seen the numbers themselves, they just couldn’t think positively. It was too much, even for the miraculous Freya.

She saw their disbelieving faces, and smiled.

“Think about it this way: if there were real pilots out there, it’d be easy to deal with them, right? Just bomb their barracks. Boom. Gone. No pilots, no mecha threat, yeah? You’re looking at those huge numbers like we’re on some big battlefield, and we’re facing each other with guns drawn.”

The squad leaders looked at each other. They were starting to get at what she was saying. The numbers were huge, but there were other ways to deal with them. Going up against them face-to-face was the worst case scenario.

All they had to do was find the winning one.

“Fact is,” she continued, “they’re sitting around uselessly. All we need to contend with is the two hundred already active. We can cripple the base before they can even mobilize the rest. We just have to hit them intelligently.”

Jackal switched his presentation to show the images of the comms tower above the hangar. It was a huge structure, but relatively easy to topple.

At least, in comparison to the 1300 mecha surrounding it.

“Of course!” yelled Sunflower. “When we did our recon, we saw those towers all over the base. They use those to control the drones! If we take them out... No more orders!”

Eva nodded. What they needed was a spear thrust through the armor, and break their communications permanently.

“If we tear down the towers,” she said, “it would hopefully mean that any mecha still in the hangar wouldn’t ever activate. They couldn’t even receive any orders. All we’d have to deal with are any mecha that’re already active.”

“We’ll also need to wreck their repair depots,” added the demolitions squad leader, “and maybe their ammo dumps, too. Really, anything flammable. Let’s throw the base into chaos.”

The demo squad leader’s callsign was Djinn, and boy did she love explosives. It was clear how enthusiastic she was about blowing things up. She even had to offer more suggestions of her own.

This was her time to shine, and she wasn’t going to let the chance slip that easily!

Eva laughed at Djinn’s suggestions.

“Let’s do it,” she said in agreement. “Do you have enough fireworks?”

“I’d have to fabricate a few specialized ones. Those towers have been buttressed, so they’ll take a bit more... oomph.”

“We can’t just walk in there and blow up some buildings,” scoffed a squad leader. “Hell, they’ll probably deploy half their mecha the second we take a step in their direction.”

“True,” said Chengli. “We’ll need a diversion. Big one, probably.”

“More than that, we can’t just hit the comms towers,” said Eva. “Like Djinn said, we should take out their repair depots at the same time, so they can’t put the towers back up. What we oughta do is raid their base once, really hard. You know: blow shit up, steal their crap, and then get the fuck out.”

The squad leaders grinned. They couldn’t last against a protracted fight, but hit-and-run raid tactics were definitely viable. By embroiling the base in chaos, it would allow them to act with impunity.

Not only were their weapons, ammunition, and repair materials right out in the open, but if they could take out their critical points of failure and neutralized the base... That basically spelled their victory over Hell Week.

As they discussed what they’d do to stir up trouble, a cadet burst in without warning.

He went straight for Eva, then stood beside her at attention.

“Unit leader Freya!” he said. “We have a serious problem! Grizz and his squadron have left the encampment in their mecha! He also took the second squadron with him.”

“What?!” yelled a squad leader. “Where’d they go?”

“Not sure, sir,” replied the cadet. “It appears the squadrons headed northeast.”

Northwards? Was he attacking the drone base? Was he insane? The other squad leaders paled when they imagined what he was up to.

If he was deserting, he would have headed eastwards, back towards the training yard. And he certainly wouldn’t have taken two squadrons with him if he was just going to run away.

He was clearly up to something, and it probably was going to end badly for everyone involved.

“He’s gonna get his cadets killed,” said Sunflower. “We need to save them.”

Eva darkened.

She didn’t really want to save Grizz or his squadron. If they wanted to be stupid and throw their lives away, that was their deal! Any forces she committed to saving them would likely result in more casualties than not.

But it was an incredible opportunity to do some serious damage... She quickly turned to Djinn.

“Get all the explosives you’ve got on hand. We’re going after those repair depots right now.”

~

Grizz tightened the grip he had on his controls as he and his squadron rushed towards the enemy base.

They had borne northeast out of the encampment, but had actually swung wide and around quickly thereafter. They were now headed towards the enemy base in a southwesterly direction at great speed.

His goal was to smash into the artillery mecha and render them useless. If Eva could do it, so could he.

His squadron was in an assault formation right in front of him, wedge-shaped, with the most experienced pilots up front. It was their honor to rip into their opponents first, and let the less experienced cadets behind them mop up.

Of course, Grizz led from the rear.

He preferred the position greatly, as it allowed him to direct his troops how he wanted and remain protected. He felt it was their solemn duty to defend him while he concentrated on executing his strategy. In his mind, they were nothing without him. If he was taken out, then no-one else had the ability to lead or achieve victory.

Not too many shared that sentiment. But he was the squad leader, so they had to take his orders. That was their duty.

The squadron was equipped with submachine guns in one hand while they wielded swords in the other. Grizz reasoned this setup allowed his squad to soften the enemy while they charged in, and then cut them to pieces when in melee.

It was a relatively sound tactic depending on the situation, but to him it was absolute genius. He had played countless games, and was very fluent with the rock-paper-scissors balance dynamic. Because he had a rather good understanding of the concept, he was very sure of his own strategic ingenuity.

There was some validity to the claim. Anyone who had nurtured this mindset would certainly have the upper hand when dealing with any difficulties in life. It didn’t matter if they had learned it through playing games or studying law.

The problem was that game theory and practical combat application didn’t always intersect. Sure, there were checks and balances, but maximizing them didn’t always result in victory. They only improved their chances.

And that lack of understanding combined with Grizz’ unrestrained narcissism was a sure-fire recipe for disaster.

“Status,” he ordered.

The cadet at the head of the formation quickly responded to him.

“We’re approaching attack range, sir.”

They sped towards the enemy position, weapons at the ready. The pilots wore determination on their faces as they looked to face the enemy head-on for the first time.

Red targets blipped onto their MFDs as they entered attack range – they were the dug-in artillery mecha, but since they were facing southwards, there was nothing they could do about it but sound the alarm.

Once they were at the optimal firing range, Grizz’ squadron squeezed the triggers on their SMGs. Round after round of depleted uranium ammunition blazed towards the helpless artillery.

They were riddled with hundreds of bullets in just seconds; their armor dented and chipped under the relentless barrage. Many rounds found their way in the gaps between the armor, and did some serious internal damage.

Circuits sparked as they were cut, lines bled coolant as they were severed, and joints became mangled as they were struck.

Grizz’ squadron continued their fierce charge until they reached melee range, at which point they simply swung at the dug-in mechas with their swords. They sliced through their weak points and severed their limbs and heads from their main bodies.

Since the artillery mecha were completely stationary, there was absolutely nothing they could do, but be damaged so critically. It was certainly an easy victory, but it never occurred to them that perhaps they were designed to be.

“Polish ’em off quick!” ordered Grizz. “We need to be ready for a counter charge!”

Grizz had expected their fast response squadron to come barreling in at them at any time. But he had a surprise for them, too. They just had to finish up the artillery mecha quickly!

“That one, get that one!” he yelled.

He simply stood in the middle and pointed out any mecha that had to be destroyed. Of course, he didn’t do anything himself except bark orders and look tough. Grizz exemplified what it meant to be a truly worthless and narcissistic middle manager.

Many of his cadets grumbled at him secretly.

They had been with him for a whole month now, and he was always like this. All he did was boss them around, as if he was some bigshot. And it wasn’t as though he had earned his rank. He simply threw tantrums and beat on people until the sergeants relented.

Empowering Grizz was probably the worst mistake of their lives.

Now they had ended up with an overgrown manchild as their leader. Since obedience was trained into them at the academy, they didn’t know what else to do but listen.

.....

Their MFDs suddenly alerted them to incoming mecha. It was the fast response squadron! And they were approaching at a very high speed.

“Quick! Box formation! Firing line!” Grizz yelled.

The cadets quickly got into a tight formation, and the first couple of rows knelt down. All of them pointed their submachine guns downrange, towards the base. The few moments of silence was deafening, and the anxiety pushed their hearts into their throats.

Suddenly, the fast response mecha rushed out from between the buildings. Both sides immediately opened fire as the enemy mecha charged towards Grizz’ squadron and tried to encircle them.

The squadrons were equally equipped with guns and swords. However, the enemy mecha had rifles rather than SMGs, and their larger caliber rounds were much more effective at dealing with armor.

Grizz’ squadron was shredded by their incoming fire, while the enemy mecha suffered mostly dents and gouges.

Both sides took plenty of damage regardless. The massive hailstorm of bullets that flew between them didn’t allow for much less. Limbs were torn off and wrenched free. Sensors were shattered and damaged. Armor was chipped and punctured and shredded.

Many mecha fell face-first into the Martian soil and powered down as their energy drained away.

Grizz’ squadron had taken heavy casualties – at least half of them had been shredded to pieces. It was a mistake for him to put them into a tight box formation. That allowed the enemy mecha to concentrate their fire, which simply tore apart the squadron.

Had he instead engaged them while executing evasive maneuvers, they would have been in far better shape.

While the two sides exchanged fire, the second squadron came rushing in from the north and flanked the enemy. They maintained a medium distance and ripped into the enemy with streams of rifle fire.

Their hail of bullets took apart many of the enemy drones, and outright demolished the already weakened ones.

The combined effort of both the squadrons reduced the fast response mecha down to a third. Those that were still combat operational had been heavily damaged. Their armor was dented, some had missing arms, others had broken jets. It was clear that their effectiveness was cut down to size.

Having lost a great deal of their strength, the enemy mecha quickly ended their attack and instead fell back towards the base.

Grizz took this as a complete victory and cheered. His “surprise strategy” was rather effective, and he couldn’t help but be overjoyed. Some of his cadets had joined in, but the others simply had sour faces.

“Overcharge your repairs!” he ordered. “We ain’t done fighting yet!”

The cadets who had gotten shredded went dark. They had just barely survived that onslaught! And now he wanted them to get back into the mix? Fucking lunatic!

They felt as though he was playing around with their lives, and their frustration was about to burst.

Unbeknownst to any of them, when the fast response squadron had initially deployed, the hangar simultaneously activated one of its floors.

Heavily armored mecha lit up and stepped out of their stations. They trudged onto the elevator platforms in the middle with mechanized efficiency, and stood in resolute formation.

They rose from the depths of the hangars and saw light for the first time in many cycles. Their hulking forms contrasted the much lighter and faster mecha around them.

A great majority of the armored mechs equipped themselves with electrolances and thick tower shields. A few picked up huge cannons and threw them on their shoulders. This squadron was wholly dangerous, and had an operational capability far beyond many of the cadets’s squadrons.

Their jets powered on as they blasted northwards towards Grizz’ position. The mechs’ cold, emotionless faceplates gleamed as they sped towards their target.

They had orders to completely dismantle all hostile units, and absolutely nothing was going to stop them from fulfilling them to an exacting degree.