RTS System in the Apocalypse: New World

By the following morning, the Nuclear Power Station no longer occupied the center of Hans’s map. A smaller marker remained north of Ironford with the latest status written beside it.

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SECURED - TECHNICAL ASSESSMENT ONGOING

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The First and Second Mobile Companies had moved much farther into their respective objectives while Matilda prepared and carried out the operation.

Hans spread the newer reports across the table inside the northern FOB office.

First Company’s line had pushed southeast toward central Grefort. Several major roads were already secured, with smaller side streets left for later clearing once the main formation moved past them. The distance separating its forward platoons from the Core had shortened considerably.

Second Company had made similar progress farther east.

Its advance covered more ground because the outer eastern districts were less dense than the approaches toward the Core. Several road networks had been connected behind the formation, while Scouts continued marking survivor-held buildings and occupied areas for later contact.

The reports contained plenty of engagements, mostly short-lived ones.

Ordinary infected moved into the roads and the companies destroyed them. Buildings were cleared when they mattered, bypassed when they did not, and marked for recovery teams when the ground behind the formations became secure enough.

Hans moved another report aside.

Three days ago, those same movements would have occupied most of his attention. Now they barely reached the summary page.

Matilda entered the office carrying another folder.

"The Nuclear Power Station remains stable. The Engineers are continuing their assessment with the surviving personnel."

Hans took the folder.

"What about the survivors?"

"The Medics are still checking some of them. Most are stable. Those well enough to work are already helping the Engineers identify the plant systems and whatever sections they can safely access."

"And Weissenberg?"

"She stayed at the station. She’s been coordinating the plant personnel with our Engineers since we left."

"Already back to work?"

"Apparently."

Hans opened the report.

"Any problem with the reactor?"

"Nothing reported so far. Weissenberg says the plant itself remained in good condition under the ASS. Most of their work now is figuring out what was locked down and what can be brought back under manual control."

"And the security system?"

"Still offline. Weissenberg wants it left that way until she finishes reviewing it."

"Keep it that way. Those things might prove useful later."

Hans remembered that the Crescent Federation in the game had Robotics Facilities capable of producing automatons and advanced fighters, some of which could make short work of conventional units once they entered the field.

If he could somehow preserve and study the technology behind the automated security system, perhaps those futuristic units were not as impossible as they once seemed.

Of course, that depended on whether the System could even make use of it.

Matilda placed another set of papers beside the company reports.

"Flight Operations sent this as well."

Hans opened it.

The first page contained sortie records from the previous day.

Raptors had supported both companies, inspected several routes ahead of the formations, and responded to two larger infected concentrations. Strikers remained divided between the moving fronts, with other aircraft held at the Airfield for reserve support.

Nothing unusual appeared until Hans reached the ammunition summaries.

Several Raptors had returned with most of their air-to-ground missiles still loaded. The next replenishment cycle replaced them anyway.

He went through the previous cycle, yet the same thing had happened there.

Hans leaned back against the chair.

"We’re wasting missiles."

Matilda glanced at the report.

"Flight Operations raised the same concern."

"They had no targets?"

"They had no priority targets under the current engagement criteria."

Hans understood the distinction. He had not adapted quick enough that the battlefield had to remind him of doing so.

The Raptors were originally treated as scarce precision assets. Tanks, enhanced infected, major concentrations, exposed command organisms, or something that the ground force could not eliminate efficiently.

That made sense when Raptor One was the only fighter he owned.

He had fourteen now. Each carried at least four air-to-ground missiles, and every aircraft replenished its ammunition after twelve hours.

A missile that remained inside the aircraft until the replenishment meant nothing. It simply disappeared unused from one allocation and returned in the next.

Hans tapped the report.

"How many concentrations did First Company encounter yesterday?"

"Several. Most were handled without difficulty."

"Large enough for a missile?"

"Some of them."

"Then why are we still waiting for Tanks?"

Matilda pulled the operational map closer.

"The earlier restrictions were based on preservation and target value."

"Right. So that was my own fault all along."

Matilda remained silent.

Hans stared at her for a moment and found no reaction. Left with mocking himself about being stupid, he shifted back to the reports.

He studied the districts surrounding the two advancing companies.

Much of Grefort was already ruined, though some buildings still mattered.

Hospitals. Utility facilities. Banks and commercial centers that had survived intact. Transportation infrastructure. Warehouses. Government buildings and whatever records remained inside them.

Others were half-collapsed shells filled with infected.

His soldiers had no reason to clear every useless structure room by room because he wanted to pretend the entire city could be restored exactly as it had been.

Anything rebuilt later would need construction crews anyway.

"We’ve been treating too many structures as if we need to preserve all of them. Most of Grefort is already dead. Even if we recapture the city, we can’t invite ghosts to live on these now, don’t you think?"

Matilda nodded slowly.

"Changing that would open considerably more targets."

"Have the Engineers and recovery teams continue identifying what actually needs protection. Intact infrastructure, utilities, Strategic Facilities, important records, anything expensive or difficult to replace."

"And everything else?"

"If it’s already beyond reasonable use, don’t risk soldiers to save the walls. We’re not architectural saints."

Matilda marked the instruction.

Hans returned to the sortie report.

"Change the Raptor criteria as well. Priority targets remain priority targets. If a Tank appears, kill it. If another enhanced infected exposes itself, kill it."

"Understood."

"But I don’t want fighters returning near replenishment with four AGMs because nothing special decided to walk outside that day."

Matilda almost smiled.

Hans continued.

"Any confirmed concentration becomes a valid target if the area is cleared for destruction. Assign available Raptors whenever higher-priority targets don’t need them."

"That will increase the number of strike requests considerably."

"Better than not doing anything."

The infected did not become more valuable because they were ordinary.

Ten thousand ordinary infected still meant ten thousand bodies his infantry would eventually need to deal with.

If a missile could remove part of that number before First Company reached the road, there was no reason to preserve the missile until the System replaced it.

Hans turned another page.

The Falcon reports were different.

Most of the utility helicopters had been moving personnel, carrying Scouts between secured positions, conducting aerial observation, or sitting ready for extraction work.

A note from First Company appeared near the bottom.

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Request: additional upper-level aerial suppression during dense urban advance.

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Second Company had submitted something similar.

Hans read both.

"Falcons?"

"They’ve been requested."

"They have door mounts."

"Yes."

They had already used them a week or two earlier during Highcross.

Hans had simply continued thinking of the Falcons primarily as transport aircraft because that was what he built them for.

There was no rule saying they had to remain transports when nobody needed to be transported. Was he going to transport corpses to Tyrus?

"How many are actually carrying passengers during normal company operations?"

"Usually two or three at a time. The rest rotate between standby, observation, and logistics."

Hans glanced toward the Airfield marker west of the city.

Eight Falcons existed now.

"Assign more of them to the companies when transport demand is low. Door gunners aboard."

"Machine guns?"

"For the urban routes. The crews can adjust the door-gun configuration for the mission."

Matilda added the change beneath the Raptor order.

Hans returned to the First Company report. The closer they moved toward the Core, the more vertical the city became.

Apartment towers, office buildings, parking structures, hotels, and commercial blocks increasingly replaced the broad industrial roads that had made Ironford easier for armor.

A Falcon did not need to clear an entire building. It only needed to remove infected leaning from windows, gathering on balconies, spilling across rooftops, or crowding exposed upper floors before infantry entered.

"The companies don’t need more soldiers shooting the same targets from the road," Hans said. "Use the aircraft to remove what the ground force has to waste time reaching."

"Understood."

Matilda gathered the air reports.

"What about the Raptors outside the company fronts?"

Hans considered the larger map. The airport remained southeast.

Its terminal still contained infected. The runways and hangars were valuable enough that he did not want missiles thrown into them without reason, but the surrounding access roads and open apron concentrations were another matter.

The eastern districts still had large areas outside Second Company’s immediate route.

The Core itself had not yet been entered.

And farther away, Saicine remained marked along the northern coast. He left that one alone for now.

"Keep enough aircraft covering both companies. Put another pair around the Core approaches for reconnaissance and exposed concentrations. The airport can take a pair when Flight Operations has an available cycle."

"And the remaining aircraft?"

"Flexible reserve."

Matilda nodded.

"Saicine?"

"Later, when the opportunity arises."

There was no need to start five different operations before the new doctrine had even run for a day. Flight Operations could adjust the schedules first and see what happens.

Hans stood and moved toward the larger wall map.

First Company’s latest position had reached another major avenue leading toward central Grefort.

A large concentration remained several kilometers ahead, scattered between damaged residential blocks and an abandoned commercial strip. The buildings around it had already suffered enough structural damage that recovery teams marked most of the sector as low priority.

The previous report recommended drawing the infected outward before advancing.

Hans changed the annotation.

"Send a Raptor pair on this one."

"Any specific pair?"

"No. Use whichever pair is available. Have Flight Operations clear the sortie window."

She transmitted the target package.

The acknowledgement came several moments later.

"Flight Operations confirms. Corridor assigned."

Hans returned to the table. He did not need to watch every missile leave the Airfield.

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