Descent into Mayhem

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - TORAMAKI SEN

Base Fido, Nature's Dawn, 20th of June, 2771

Colonel Toramaki Sen observed the display panel and grimaced. His expression was carefully studied and imitated by his subordinates, who surrounded the wide table into which the panel was embedded. Looking briefly south-west through the campaign tent's mosquito-netted window, the colonel thought about the difficult decisions that lay before him. Grimacing again, he leaned towards his comms officer.

"The companies currently under attack are to cease offensive action and retreat. This retreat must be slow and organized, and they must head northwards into the Dogspine. Waste this monster's time! Get it lost in the range's folds and crevices, because the time we've made it lose up until now doesn't yet justify the losses we've just suffered.

"As for the companies it passes by, once it's in the Dogspine they are to harass the bakemono every step of the way."

"Colonel, as for the casualties –"

"The bot casualties are of no concern. They were out-of-date anyway ..."

"I think he meant our people, sir," an old major interjected. "They have perhaps two days of food left, the winds are arriving and the rains will soon follow. What about them?"

The colonel thought about that for a while.

ROWAC was an unusual unit in that the majority of its human components were not dedicated to frontline duties. Between logistics, resupply and the three Cs, ROWAC congregated more than two hundred personnel in its command base.

He had decided to locate Base Fido right in the middle of the pass that interrupted the northern and southern ranges of the Dogspine. The base was a highly improvised thing, of course, but its situation, well flanked by the mountain range's tall peaks, and by the fast river that followed the northern slopes of the northern range, provided effective protection. The base was also situated on the axis MEWAC had forged in its passing, and his esteemed EWAC colleagues were at the moment improving the conditions of that axis from Fido to Lograin to favor a more fluid ROWAC retreat, and booby traps had already begun to be set there.

The base itself was concealed within the tall grove that grew in the pass, a smaller grove of nearby Diesel trees having blessed that spot as well. The Diesel grove had been spurned by MEWAC in their passing; their deposits were too meager to justify the effort of tapping for fuel to power those oil-guzzling armored Suits. ROWAC's energy requirements were more humble, however, and the grove had proved generous enough to fuel all his bots.

The bots didn't burn the fuel, of course. Their generators had instead been designed to saturate the oil with oxygen and infuse a small amount of initial heat, the resulting slow decomposition being enough to quietly and efficiently power their systems for a couple of days.

That grove had since dried up, not due to ROWAC, but to EWAC's efforts instead. Contrary to common belief, MEWAC wasn't alone in operating Suits; the Engineering Warfare Corps possessed some of their own, although their adapted Hammerheads were far more lightly armed and armored, having been exclusively tasked to combat engineering, mobility and counter-mobility works. It was EWAC that had dug the improvised command bunker in the midst of the more extensive pine grove. They had also dug the trenches for his elite praetorian bots, and opened up the ground surrounding the base to establish a killing field for the anti-armor teams, recycling the acquired timber into the central bunker and other key positions. Progress had become slower since then, the Suits having to depend on fuel resupply from Lograin, its arrival slow and difficult due to terrain constraints.