Ravens of Eternity

Chapter 28

28 Hell Week, Pt DING!

All the squad leaders’ DIs notified them of an incoming message. It was labeled high priority, and was sent directly from base commander Riddell’s desk. Some trembled as they opened it.

—

OBJECTIVE UPDATE:

Primary Objective: Survive Hell Week.

The previous objective, Neutralize Primary Enemy Position, is remanded to a secondary objective, and no longer mandatory for operational success.

—

The squad leaders breathed a sigh of relief. They felt they could face Hell Week a little easier, without having the pressure of launching any offensives. But Eva shook her head in disagreement.

“This doesn’t really change anything,” she said. “We still need to get into that hangar, and we still need to know their numbers. Besides, the objective doesn’t matter. Not really. No matter how we commit our forces, they’ve got the numbers to grind us down bit by bit. Our only option is to cripple or neutralize the base to stop any aggressions.”

.....

“Agreed,” said Sunflower. “We can’t just hunker down and defend for ten cycles straight. We’re gonna get worn down into submission.”

The squad leaders muttered in subdued debate.

“Before we get too deep into that, can I suggest something?” asked Chengli. “Can we move the command location away from a tent? This is hardly defensible. If they bombarded us right now...”

He couldn’t finish the sentence, and he didn’t want to. But the squad leaders’ imaginations took over. If they were all taken out at the same time, then it really would’ve become hell for all of them.

“What kind of idiot sets up a command station in a flimsy tent, anyway?” chided Eva. “Let’s get ourselves somewhere more secure, yeah?”

Everyone agreed, and quickly moved everything from the tent into a large building nearby. While it wasn’t exactly a bunker, it was certainly sturdier than metal poles and fabric.

They had the r/r wing reinforce their new command post while the squad leaders themselves took down the tent that occupied the encampment’s center square.

They instead used that open space to park their mecha, in case they needed to quickly lead a sortie.

It wasn’t long until the twelve squad leaders’ mecha were kneeling down in a circle in the center of the encampment. They were facing outwards, their armor and cores were open and ready to accept their pilots. Their weapons were also at the ready, which allowed them to be prepared for any hostile situation.

They were like majestic statues that watched over the whole encampment, and the very sight of them boosted the cadets’ morale sky-high.

Afterwards, the squad leaders decided that their defenses were simply too poor. Currently, they had very few reinforced buildings – only the guard posts, really. At the very least, they needed to better protect their hangars and other mission-critical buildings, such as the power plant and comms station.

So they had the r/r wing gather up as many of the cadets as they could and had them help strengthen the encampment’s critical locations. A few groaned at the mundane task, but they all understood the importance. After all, their lives were on the line.

Not only did they reinforce the buildings, but they also added a number of defensive fortifications all over the place. Previously, only the guard posts had these, but having them everywhere meant that they could more easily repel attacks from any direction.

They weren’t anything too complicated – just sheets of armor that stood up at a slight angle. These slabs of armor gave defenders plenty of cover and protection in the event of a firefight. They certainly had helped protect six of the cadets’ lives so far. More could never hurt.

While the r/r wing beefed up their defenses, the infiltration wing geared up for their first mission. It was their job to go scout the enemy hangar. Obviously, they weren’t able to go in with their mecha, so they resolved to infiltrate it on foot.

This was clearly suicidal, so Eva insisted on going with them (because it sounded fun). Of course, the other squad leaders adamantly refused. Instead, they had compromised.

Eva and her wing of elites were to escort the infiltration wing to their deployment point, but after that, all they could do was protect the site and watch as they worked.

It was all they could do, really. Luckily she agreed, albeit a little reluctantly.

So, she and her wing led the way, while the infiltration wing led by squad leader Jackal followed a hundred meters back. They stealthily zipped in a northwesterly direction, though they gave the enemy base a very wide berth.

They headed for the rocky outcropping, neutralized the sensor again just in case, and set up an observation post as inconspicuously as they could.

Jackal and a handful of the infiltration wing then hopped out of their mecha and made their way towards the enemy base.

They all had confidence that this approach would literally allow them to ‘fly under the radar’. Almost all of their mechs’ sensors were set to detect standard signals and emissions that man-made machines typically made.

Vehicles were often prioritized and were given higher importance. This included all sorts of vehicles from cars to mecha to mining barges.

The sensors also detected and filtered weapons, armor, and other tools of warfare. These typically had very special emissions and signatures, and were very easy to detect. Any units who were equipped with these were automatically flagged as well.

Any time sensors picked up any vehicles that were equipped with lethal weaponry, military sensors would automatically flag them and raise them as a potential target.

Just as critically, the cadets themselves emitted energy signatures.

After all, human bodies themselves were also highly complex machines. They stored energy and radiated heat. Nothing was invisible.

Unless they were kitted out in full battle gear, their signals typically sat near the bottom.

So, in order for the cadets to infiltrate the base properly, they had to go in with as little equipment and weaponry as possible. They were also slightly shrouded with signal-dampening tech. This didn’t make them totally undetectable, but as long as they didn’t appear on any of the drone mechs’ targeting lists, they should be fine.

That didn’t stop Eva from worrying. If the cadets were discovered, the drones were likely to kill them, change up their defenses, and make future attempts impossible.

The pressure was high, and they informed the cadets that what they were doing was mission-critical. While that certainly elevated their stress, it was absolutely important that they understood the gravity of their mission.

Everything rode on their success.

Eva watched over the wing carefully through her MFDs.

Although they maintained radio silence, the infiltration team had been transmitting their sensors and live feed directly to them, so everyone who was out with Eva watched as they made their way towards the base.

They crossed the thousand meter stretch on foot, which took a few minutes. Luckily, none of the patrols noticed them. They were too small, and too unimportant to even register at those distances.

It wasn’t long before they had reached the outskirts of the base, and huddled up against a building and sat under its shadow.

Sweat built up on their brows now that they were much closer. They felt the ground rumble as mecha patrolled all over the base. They even felt the vibrations through the building they were leaning against.

They were frightened, but they choked back their fears and ducked down towards the next building.

The team dashed up to a corner, and Jackal peeked around it. Just on the other side was a wing of drone mecha. They slowly walked by as they scanned their immediate surroundings.

The last one uncharacteristically stopped while it was near them, and swiveled slightly from side to side. It was as though it was looking for something, which made them all hold their breaths. Not that it made a difference.

After a moment, the drone took a step forward and joined the rest of its wing and continued its patrol.

The infiltration team took this opportunity to move to the next building, and further closed the distance to the hangars. They carefully made their way to their ultimate destination and did their best to stay hidden and away from any patrols’ line-of-sight.

They had a couple of devices that would help them get away if they were spotted, but they were only for absolute emergencies. Everyone hoped they didn’t have to use them at all.

The cadets pushed themselves beyond what they had trained for at the academy. Without a doubt, they had employed everything that they had learned in the past nine weeks in just these few minutes alone. It all culminated here at Hell Week. And it was right then that these cadets understood the purpose of it all.

Of course, they had been told before that this was a test of their abilities, but it didn’t really sink in until they felt the heat under their collars.

Here they were, unarmed and defenseless right in the middle of an entrenched enemy position, and scared fucking shitless. Any mistake would have cost them their lives, and the lives of their fellow cadets.

Every moment mattered, and every decision was critical.

So they didn’t linger and kept moving towards their goal, every step more vigilant than the last. They wiped their brows and continued to carry the burden that they held on their shoulders.

When they reached the hangars, everyone let out a sigh of relief, Eva included. But they couldn’t relax fully just yet. The mission had only just begun.

They crept into the huge hangar – it was far larger than the hangars they had back at the training yard. Possibly four times as much. This clearly didn’t have a retractable dome as it was too enormous for that. Plus, there was a huge comms array installed on top of it.

In order for the mecha to enter or exit the hangar, two of the four sides were completely open, which allowed a great deal of traffic to flow in and out of it.

The team crept inside and over to a corner, where they kept to the shadows. They took their time to scan their surroundings and soak in everything around them. Of course, they didn’t bother to filter any of it and transmitted the intel directly to their observation post.

They didn’t need to think about any of it, just observe, collate, and forward.

Although two of the walls were completely open, the other two walls were closed off and were comprised of rack after rack of various mecha weaponry and spare ammunition. There was also a section for repair guns and materials.

A few mechanic drones hovered in the air and scanned mecha as they cruised by. Some stopped one, and patched it up slightly before they allowed it to continue.

In the center of the hangar were four large elevator platforms that descended to the floors below.

Everyone shuddered as they imagined how deep this hangar actually went.

The infiltration team quickly scouted a doorway along the wall and went through it. Even though this was a drone-only facility, it was realistic in every degree. It had to mimic a typical base, and so had to have these avenues of attack, so to speak.

This was a test of their skills, after all, which made total realism and attention to detail all the more necessary. The only thing that was missing from the whole scenario were people.

The door led into a hallway which housed a few fake offices and storage rooms, though none of them contained anything worthwhile. Everything was quite dark, so the team had to resort to using the greyscale night vision module on their helmets.

Further beyond the rooms, at the end of the hallway was a stairwell that descended downwards into inky darkness. They gulped audibly as they peered down the center of the stairwell.

It went so far that they could barely see the bottom, even with their night vision mode on. A quick scan revealed that it had a depth of 480 meters.

Eva was troubled by how deep the hangar went. If the standard mecha hangar floor was 40 meters, that meant that this thing had 13 floors, including the ground floor.

The infiltration team continued forwards, and entered the first floor. They went through a similar doorway as what they had gone through up on the ground floor, and marveled at what they saw.

Mecha stations lined the wall, some had working mecha in them, some were empty. Those that housed mecha had a few mechanic drones hovering around them. It looked like they were in the midst of performing basic repairs and maintenance.

Jackal initiated a scan and revealed that there were exactly a hundred stations on the floor.

That number alarmed everyone. A hundred stations on the one floor? What about the rest of the floors? They prayed that they all didn’t have mecha on them.

The team scanned what they could, then moved down the floors one by one.

And with each floor they scanned, they further confirmed everyone’s fears – each floor had a hundred mecha each. Worse, a great majority of them were completely undamaged and in perfect condition. They looked completely battle-ready and set to go at any given moment.

A shiver ran through the team.

This was far beyond what they could handle. If all of these drones came out and attacked at once, the entire coalition would be turned to paste.

When they got to the final floor, they were somewhat relieved to see that it contained no mecha at all.

.....

Rather, it was filled with an empty operations control center, and two of its walls were covered with multiple server racks. Their lights blinked ominously in the darkness. Terminals and workstations were situated in angled rows that were parallel to each other, and they all faced a wall that was covered in huge displays.

If this base had people in it, chances were that the officers would all be down here. This was the perfect spot to control all operations – it was literally the safest spot on the base. Hundreds of meters underground, and protected by a thousand mecha.

The team collected as much data as they could, and then they left as promptly and as quietly as they could.

Everyone needed to pull back and think hard about the situation. This new information needed to be scrutinized further before they could make any moves. They had to deal with two hundred mecha up top, and roughly eleven hundred mecha down below.

Even minus the fifty they scrapped previously, it was still far too many to handle. How could they possibly neutralize a base of that size with less than two hundred cadets at their command? With or without Grizz’ support, they were vastly outnumbered. The squad leaders needed to figure out some way to defeat it.

If that was even possible.