How Can This Be
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Mordeck was troubled, he could not believe the events of the last few days had really happened. It was impossible, but the ship that had been sent to the battle platform to find out why they were not responding, reported total destruction of the platform and the ships around it. Every part that might give a clue as to what happened was broken into small useless chunks of metal. Every person onboard that wasn’t completely disintegrated were now floating in space in little chunks as well. The ships were all broken in the same manner as those found around Titan. He could only imagine the ships around the base in Mars were in the same state, this new type of attack was very effective. He was angry that his pitiful human slaves had not found a way to incorporate it into their attacks. He couldn’t risk anymore ships to find out what state the ships around the Mars base were in. He had given orders not to go near the bases, he didn’t want to lose any more ships, he needed them to defend the home base in case whatever force was out there decided to attack this base as well. He didn’t have many ships left, certainly none to waist chasing after an obviously superior force. If they could take out the Platform they could more than likely destroy his base. The platform was bad enough, but all the ships wasted on the Mars base was just ridiculous, those who ordered the ships to continue going there to attack the unknown force, were going to be punished for a very long time. Of course he would never admit that it was him, he had told his command staff, he did not care how many ships it took he wanted the threat destroyed.
To make matters worse some idiot in one of the safe houses in the Mars Region sent a ship and a team down to the advanced weapons staging area in the manufacturing facility and they lost contact. He was sure they were destroyed as well, this was just one more thing on top of everything else. Yes, the base was important to his plans, it was where they were building the weapons and shield technology for the non-gifted mercenaries. The technology was based on the stolen Amberlin designs from Delta Faction a few years before, but he had given orders to stay away. Now all of his plans were ruined, it would be years before he could rebuild. He wished he could summon the idiot back to the home base so he could punish him for his stupidity, but that might attract the attack force to his base. He could only hope they did not know where it was, or they might destroy it next.
How could a force so strong enter his area of control and destroy the platform and leave with no trace. How could he have not seen this coming, all he could see was the blur of light that was the threat. All of his processing power and teams of pre-cogs were useless. He randomly choose members of his pre-cogs teams to be tortured as punishment for not seeing the threat to the platform and the force that was attacking Gamma Faction. He was starting to think that he might be the threat, every time he switched tactics and focused on the source of the threat he lost everything. It was time to regroup, pull all his forces back to the base and rebuild. Time was no matter, even if he waited a hundred years it did not matter, time was nothing to him. Still he was very angry that his plans had been ruined. He was the superior life form, he should be winning, any threat the humans had should be no match for him. How could this be happening, how could they be out smarting him.
While Mordeck was brooding over his misfortune, David and his team had to determine what their next move would be. They had reduced the enemy forces substantially, including the large battle platform. Conventional wisdom said they should strike now while the enemy was weak, before they had a chance to regroup. The only problem was the base was massive, and still defended by twenty five ships. They still did not know for sure that the enemy did not have a way to detect their ships, though every encounter seemed to indicate they did not. They had to make a decision soon our the momentum of their victories would be lost. They called a meeting and began planning.
During the meeting they determined for an operation this size it would require all of Red Team. Also they would need at least ten Bashers and perhaps more. That part was easy they had lots of recruits almost fully trained and a lot more than ten Bashers already created. David realized that trying to visualize all of the many floors and possible target areas on the base was still difficult with their current battle interface. He realized that having a three dimensional representation of the base and the surrounding area was the only way to keep track of the battle. They made changes to the interface. They divided it into layered views depending on the perspective that was required for the operator. At the highest level was a 3D view of the planet and the space around it. This view would be for the ships and Bashers to use to coordinate their attacks. The next level down was a war room with a 3D view of the many floors and targets of the base. This was for the highest level of command and control. They put their surveillance drones to work collecting all the information required to construct that model. The next level down was individual sections of the base that would be assigned to each team. The team commander would have that view. The next level down was basically the old interface that the team members would use. All of them where interlinked and each user could move up or down through the interface depending on their need.
It was quickly determined that the interface would have to incorporate the fourth dimension as well. The old interface had allowed them to use it, but it was never formally designed, the new interface however would use time automatically. The entire attack would take place in stages or phases depending on the context, each target would be assigned to an objective that would in turn be assigned to a milestone. When the objectives for that milestone were achieved the milestone was considered achieved. When all the milestones for a phase were achieved the interface would automatically move on to the next phase. By adding the new elements to the interface it became even more useful and far more flexible. Each team could have multiple objectives that took place across several phases and it could all be choreographed to be launched by the interface at the appropriate time. The interface would handle keeping track of objectives and milestones, each team leader would just have to make sure that his objective was complete and marked as such in the interface.
At each level the milestones would change from red to green to indicate the completion of the milestone. In this way the commander could keep track of his progress and see quickly were he needed to refocus troops to complete that phase of the attack. At the highest view the whole base could be seen and the progression from red to green could be observed. As well as call outs to indicate areas of concern as the battle unfolded.
When one objective was complete they would just move on to the next one. Each would be staged with the appropriate tools needed to complete the objective weather that meant robots or obstacle deployment it didn’t matter. Each team leader had an alternate assigned so if for some reason they were not able to complete their objective the alternate would take over. This allowed teams to be broken down to as small as two man teams. Of course each two man team had up to an additional forty robots and countless obstacles at their disposal.
While they were planning the interface Gordon had an idea. Hey guys you know how we use obstacles to redirect the enemy and slow them down, what if we incorporated a stationary gun emplacement into the interface, he suggested. What did you have in mind, Michael asked him. Well, you know how we have the small guns mounted on the Bashers, what if we designed one that could be placed on the ground with a solid base, with the same targeting capabilities and sensors as a robot, he asked. That would be great for keeping the enemy pinned down when we needed it, they all agreed it was a good idea.
We could even add a couple of extra missile options, David suggested, something like a miniature version of the torpedoes. How big we talking, Emma asked. I was thinking six inch diameter and only about two feet long, David said. Ouch, in an enclosed space that should do some serious damage, Gordon said. We will keep it as only for anything bigger than a small squad, David said, realizing that it might be a bit of ove
r kill otherwise, and may even jeopardize the mission if it destroyed the structural integrity of the buildings before team members had a chance to evacuate the structure.