章 54: End of the Attack
"3 minute timer? What is that for?"
"I thought the match still had 30 minutes left!"
"Just when it was getting good..."
Various reactions from the attacking team were said along these lines. Apparently most players had forgotten that the objective was to take control of 3 points in the base for 3 minutes and not kill off every other mech.
It seems that the defending enemy mechs also got the same 3 minute timer and were reminded of the actual objective of the match. Wisely, the defending mechs let the larger attacking force have the gate and went for the weaker objectives. The command center was the hardest to hold due to lack of adequate cover where as with the mech hangar they could just defend from inside.
"Seems they figured it out, prepare to get hit from the South and East!" Gray commanded.
Sadly Paul's mech was next to useless without any workable arms so instead he opted to charge at enemies while saying random garbage in the open public chat like "I'll bite your ankles!" or "I can still fight better than you with no arms!" Eventually Paul's taunting started to grate on both teams so he finally stopped after friendly fire 'accidentally' hit his mech in the back of the head.
Gray switched to Team 1's chat and said "Giacobbe, we need reinforcements at the Command Center, they're no longer focusing the main gate."
"I'll send what I can, only just now did we get everyone inside."
"At the very least, just keep them from getting to us from the South, if we can focus on them at the East, we can maintain a defensive position." Gray said.
"I get it, I get it!" Giacobbe said impatiently.
Giacobbe considered letting the 3 holding the Command Center fall so he could take it back triumphantly, but fortunately Giacobbe was not a spiteful person and decided that it was better to win regardless.
Gray expected that the enemies would amass before pushing from the East and South of the Command Center. Gray had taken up a defensive position against the southern wall of the command center and Yurika had taken one on the northern wall of the command center. As for Paul, he was delegated to watching the South side with Gray to be a mech shield since he couldn't attack.
Gray just noticed something strange about the base layout. It appears that this base was clearly designed with mech fights in mind as the amount of space between each building was enough to fit 3 mechs shoulder to shoulder usually. Fortunately the pile of mechs Geoff had made when he crashed and had his mech destroyed created a small pile of 4 mechs that blocked off one of the 5 paths from the East and South of the Command Center leaving 3 open from the East and 1 open from the South.
"Gray! We're low on ammo and Caleb's mech is down after taking some sniper rounds." Stacia suddenly chimed in.
"What's everyone's status?" Gray asked.
"Caleb is down, my sniper rifle scope got destroyed, Alice lost her tripod, but strangely it's like none of the enemy even sees Xyra." Stacia reported
"Xyra is unnoticeable even in a mech" Gray thought to himself while chuckling.
"Stacia, see if you can detach your tripod and give it to Alice, then take Caleb's rifle. Xyra, just keep doing what you are doing." Gray commanded.
Stacia tried to detach her tripod from her sniper rifle but it was not designed to be done by a mech so it ended up snapping off and being unusable when she tried to force it off.
"Umm, I broke my tripod too..." Stacia said sheepishly.
Gray almost instinctively face-palmed but that would be a bad idea while in a mech. "Just take Caleb's sniper rifle then, Alice, use Caleb's remains to try and stabilize your shots. Feel free to split his ammo as well."
"Understood!"
Alice seemed a little to enthusiastic about using Caleb's remains to stabilize her rifle. She kicked the remains of his mech forward causing the mech to fall to its knees then what was left of his torso bent forward and fell down as well. With the top part of the torso pushed into the ground and the knees still bent, the butt of Caleb's mech was pointing up. Alice then stabbed the remains of her tripod into a gap in the armor on the butt, using it to stabilize her sniper rifle again.
Caleb, who was back in the spectator's lobby, winced when he saw Alice stab her tripod between the armor plates on his mech's butt. "Good thing I had already been taken out of the match." Caleb thought.
"2 minutes 20 seconds!" Gray yelled, then he switched to Team 2's chat "How're you guys holding up?"
"The 4 of us are good, we piled up the gantry cranes near the only mech-sized door in the hangar and have a clear line-of-sight to anyone that tries to get in." the leader of Team 2 reported.
"Good to hear." Gray switched back to Team 3's channel. "Instead of killing every mech, try to disable them between the buildings, it takes time to move a mech body even with another mech."
With the back of his mech pressed against the southern wall of the Command Center, Gray was using his peeper to watch for enemy mechs from the East while keeping his main display looking South. Exactly at the 2 minute mark on the timer, the 4 lanes still open from the South and East filled up with enemy mechs at the same time.
"Giacobbe! Need help now!" Gray said hastily after switching to Team 1's channel.
"8 mechs coming to help!"
Gray took a glance towards the West and saw that 8 friendly mechs had just arrived at the Command Center.
"8 friendlies switch to Team 3 channel!" Gray commanded, "4 to the North, 4 to the South!"
Surprisingly the 8 friendly mechs were able to split themselves up without trouble and started to open fire with their assault and laser rifles as soon as they got in range. Suddenly Gray, Paul, and the 4 ally mechs started to take gun and laser fire from the South.
"Gray, we're taking it from both sides! What should we do?" Paul asked.
"...Paul... you will be missed..." then Gray kicked Paul's mech down the Southern alley that was still open and said "Just run into them, keep them from coming up that way!"
Gray was concentrating his fire on the legs of an enemy mech coming up one of the East side paths after kicking Paul down the lane and didn't even pay attention to what was going to happen.
Seeing a mech running at them with no weapons caused the enemy mechs to hesitate slightly, but they still thought it was best to attack after a second. Without hesitation the 3 enemy mechs in the front of the 6-mech formation opened fire upon Paul's unarmed mech. Luckily the enemy mechs were aiming at the torso of Paul's mech so it could tank a few shots there.
"For Pony!" Paul cried then slammed his mech into theirs without hesitation and did his best just to mess up their approach. Paul was able to knock the center mech and the left mech over, the tight formation was actually advantageous to Paul's goal of bottling up this lane.
Gray heard Paul's cry and then the loud crash of metal on metal, Paul was able to bottle up two-thirds of that last southern lane, so when the enemy mech that was still standing in the front of that formation turned to finish off Paul, Gray took advantage of him exposing the side of his mech and shot out one of his knee joints causing the enemy mech to be stuck standing and facing sideways. The enemy pilot still had enough foresight to turn his mech's head and then try and aim sideways at Gray, but his aim was abysmal so Gray was able to destroy the enemy's arm with his Battle Rifle.
Gray breathed a sigh of relief now that only the East alleys were viable. Between the 3 remaining snipers able to overlook the base and the 10 mechs keeping the enemy from advancing even with superior numbers, Gray, Yurika, and their 8 allies were able to hold the Command Center.
After the timer ran out, a message popped up on everyone's HUD.
"Attack Succeeded. Time: 34:01"
"Ok, we have to hold them for 34 minutes and 1 second!" Gray said enthusiastically.
Gray and the others we're sent back to the pregame lobby with one minute until the second round begins.
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