“Copy that,” Lin replied.
Both of Ghost Platoon’s heavies drew their melee weaponry as they closed the distance. Reggie used the opportunity to melt away Lion armor with his Plasma Launchers as the two remaining Eminent Deadly juggernauts prepared their own hand weapons.
[Sole Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 4/5]
[Sole Objective Complete: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 5/5]
But just like that, it was over. Lin stomped a final metallic foot down on her vanquished opponent. Gremlin tore open the torso armor of his wrecked Lion like a predator on the savanna.
Fireworks.
Announcer.
Green room.
Reggie was beginning to enjoy the routine of battles that went Ghost Platoon’s way.
He made a quick check of the standings before heading off to bed with June in tow.
[Lucky Outlaws 4-0]
[Ghost Platoon 3-1]
[Spiffy Exterminators 3-1]
[Diligent Squad 2-2]
[Eminent Deadly 2-2]
[Acceptable Devils 1-3]
[Pale Veterans 1-3]
[Tough Occupation 0-4]
Chapter Thirty-One
The next day was the packed schedule. Ghost Platoon was on the bubble. Their performance over the day’s battles would determine whether they made the cut or ended up a footnote in the Valhalla West database when the Ragnarok Showdown ended. That meant they’d be one of the teams to play three matches. The dregs who were playing out the string to see whether they finished sixth, seventh, or last in their group would play tomorrow, where the die-hard esports fans would be the only ones watching.
For everyone else, tomorrow would either be an off day or the offseason. Only the winners would play after today.
“OK, I’ve got it all figured out,” Chase radioed from Diablo’s cockpit. They were still in the Wounded Legion hangar, waiting to be summoned. “If we win out, we’re obviously in. But if we lose to the Spiffy Exterminators, we can still make it in if they lose to Diligent Squad. If those are the only losses for the three of us, we’d end with matching records, and it would go to tie-breakers.”
“Wouldn’t the head-to-head tiebreaker go to Spiffy Exterminators?” June asked.
Reggie could hear the pedantic grin in Chase’s voice. “No. You see, Diligent would have the same tiebreaker over Spiffy, and we’ll have already beaten Diligent Squad. It would turn into rock, paper, scissors with no resolution. They’d have to go to fewest deaths, which is the next tie-breaker.”
“You live for this shit, don’t you?” Lin asked.
“Who has the fewest deaths?” June asked warily.
“Um, Spiffy. By a lot,” Chase replied. “But that’s subject to change.”
“We’ve had a couple near-wipes,” Reggie radioed back. “Let’s just not lose anymore, huh?”
Reggie had gotten swept up in Chase’s math problem and lost track of time. In an instant, Valhalla West summoned Ghost Platoon to their next match.
:30
:29
Reggie took quick stock of their surroundings. The battlefield resembled a nuclear wasteland, the kind that Cold War movies envisioned if WWIII ever happened. Baked turf was cracked and lifeless. The few buildings remaining were husks of brick and steel. Roads were merely asphalt strips breaking up the landscape, leading to nothing from nothing.
There was no sign of Acceptable Devils.
“Reminder,” Chase said. “This is another missile team. Be prepared for them to have countered our laser defenses with mirrored coatings on their warheads.”
“Stick to the buildings,” Reggie ordered. “Find the best cover you can and set up sniper nests. Frank, don’t even start with me. You’ve got Beam Cannon-Ls on that Tiger for a reason. Use ‘em.”
“Gotcha,” Lin replied. “Will do.”
“If they can’t get us out in the open, they’ve got nothing they can do.”
“What about me?” June asked.
“You’ll spot from cover. It’s not your usual ranger role, but you’ll still spot them the instant you have a line of sight.”
It wasn’t a glorious battle plan. Only in a place like Armored Souls could battle ever be about glory in the first place. Wars were about winning. There might have been a few rules about civilians and prisoners, but by and large, anything went as far as coming out victorious.
Today, that meant sitting tight and forcing the long-range specialists to come hunting for them.
:10
:09
:08
“Everyone stick to the plan,” Reggie warned.
:02
:01
The countdown ended.
“And the battle commences!” came the expected announcement.
[Sole Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 0/5]
Minutes ticked by.
“I don’t think they’re coming,” Chase radioed. “Think maybe we should—?”
“No,” Reggie snapped. “Keep watch. This is a test of wills, and I’ll be damned if we lose it.”
“But what if—?”
“Negative,” Reggie cut him off. “First team to blink gives the other the advantage. I don’t care if we can beat these Acceptable Devils nine times out of ten just rushing them. If your math lesson is right, there’s a remote chance that incidental deaths might cost us. I’m taking the 10/10 chance that sniping them from hard cover will win without taking casualties.”
Ghost Platoon waited.
And waited.
Finally, blips appeared on the tactical map.
TARGET DATA ACQUIRED.
“Fire at will!” Reggie ordered.
As predicted, Acceptable Devils didn’t stand a chance. Missiles were great for softening up a foe asymmetrically without risking damage in return. But put a target behind hard cover, give them a long, uninterrupted line of sight, and it wasn’t long before a missile-based offense fell apart.
Yulong’s Anti-Matter Projector scored the first kill, popping the cockpit on a Chi-Ri in what might have been a lucky shot had it been anyone else.
[Sole Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 1/5]
Two Jackals went down in rapid succession. The missiles they fired in return doing more damage to the ruins than to Ghost Platoon.
[Sole Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 2/5]
[Sole Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 3/5]
From there, Reggie relented and allowed a free-for-all to finish up what had been a long, boring battle.
[Sole Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 4/5]
[Sole Objective Complete: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 5/5]
The fireworks looked bleak above the post-apocalyptic landscape, like a comedian joking about a tragedy still too fresh for the audience to stomach.
WINNER: GHOST PLATOON.
“No resting on our laurels,” Reggie warned.
Ghost Platoon waited and watched. Other matches ticked past. Reggie caught himself paying attention to the top contenders in other groups.
“Your picks doing well?” he asked Chase on the side.
Chase nodded until he could swallow a mouthful of beer. “Yeah. All but one look like they’re making the final sixteen.”
“Don’t look ahead,” Lin warned, eyes fixed on the screen where Lucky Outlaws were dominating yet another match. “That’s like… the most cliché reason ever for losing. Focus on the next battle.”
“Right,” Reggie and Chase both agreed.
After what felt like days—but had only been hours—Ghost Platoon was plucked from their catered buffet and plopped back into the cockpits of their juggernauts. This time, they were poised at the tide-kissed edge of a white sandy beach, staring out over the ocean. A chain of tiny islands dotted the shimmering blue waters.
“Ever wonder if every team’s green room is the same?” Chase asked. “I wish I’d thought to ask at work, but it’s been bugging me for the past two hours.”
“How about a reminder of the team composition,”
Reggie suggested as an alternative.
“Oh. Yeah. Sure,” Chase said quickly. “I’m thinking that Diligent Squad isn’t as good as their record indicates. Turns out, these guys haven’t faced Lucky Outlaws yet.”
Lin picked up on the inaccuracy instantly. “I thought you said we could end up tied with them.”
“Well, I fucked up. Sue me,” Chase snapped. “Anyway, these guys are good. Don’t get me wrong. But I think we want to play straight against them. They’re nearly a mirror of us, albeit with a more uniform load out of jugs. Two Jackals, two Demons, and one Otsu.”
“I can’t get over them bringing a light,” Lin remarked.
Reggie felt the same way, but there was at least a little logic behind it. Artemis was a Phoenix, light for a medium but still packed some firepower. June could outrun or at least keep pace with anything they’d seen in the tournament thus far. An Otsu, however, was twice the speed with room to spare. With an expert pilot at the controls, it would be a nightmare to hit. With a proper sensor package—which would leave to weight left to arm it—the little bastard would out-scout June.
“Ignore it,” Reggie ordered. “It’s a scout and nothing more. If we can take out the other four, we’ll hunt it like a runaway piglet.”
“Um,” Chase said. “Let’s assume for the time being that none of us have actually done that.”
“Fine,” Reggie allowed. “Like a boxer stalking a quicker opponent. There’s no place to go. These arenas aren’t infinite. Even this ocean will drop off to unwalkable depths at some point. Speaking of… June, can you get a sensor reading on the depth?”
“Not until the match starts?”
“As soon as, then.”
“Roger that.”
:10
:09
:08
:07
:06
:05
:04
:03
:02
:01
No one else had said a word. It was almost as if… they were focused and prepared. Reggie crossed his fingers as the announcer’s shrill, overenthusiastic voice boomed, “And the battle commences!”
[Sole Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 0/5]
All five members of Ghost Platoon remained stationary. Clearly, there would be island-hopping in this battle, but until they knew where they had solid ground beneath those waves, the whole ocean was a hazard.
“Wait for it…” June said. “Wait for it… almost… got it!”
Reggie’s map updated. What had once been a blank void pockmarked with islands now showed a topographical representation of the continental shelf. Lines of differing depths marked areas where juggernauts could safely traverse.
“Hold up,” June ordered. Even Reggie held his ground after Vortex had only taken two steps into the water. “First two zones are fine for all of us. No one but Frank or Lin should venture into the third. The heavies will be able to fire shoulder and wrist-mounted weaponry from there.”
Reggie studied the topography, trying to think like a game developer for a moment. “Look at this map. Check out India-Four-Two. I’m betting that’s where Diligent Squad got dumped to start.”
“No tricks,” Chase warned. “We can win this playing straight.”
“No one in their right mind would play straight against us if they knew that,” Reggie countered. “Why assume that if we want to play fair, so will they? No one wants to play fair. Unless that Otsu has sonar and a periscope, it’s not going to submerge. I say we take ranged combat out of the equation entirely.”
“Wait…” June said warily. “You’re not seriously—”
“Yup,” Reggie said. “Melee combat favors us heavily. Everyone down under the water. Way down. We want to catch them island-hopping. If they won’t enter the water, we snipe and use the free extra heat sinking of the seawater. If they come in after us, we drag them under and turn it into a street fight.”
“I’m in,” Frank radioed back.
Of course, Frank was in. Frank liked anything that involved manually bashing juggernauts to scrap metal.
And so it was that the five juggernauts of Ghost Platoon became submarines. Walking along the ocean floor beneath the waves, they passed by schools of fish that seemed unaware their aquatic home had become a battlefield.
TARGET DATA ACQUIRED.
“They spotted us too,” June added as soon as the message popped up on Reggie’s heads-up display. “Looks like they’re veering to make landfall at Golf-Five-Two.”
“Full ahead. Make for their present location. If they want to fight on land, so be it,” Reggie said. “We’ll stay in the water.”
“Damn right,” Lin grumbled.
“Those islands looked all jungley and flammable,” Chase pointed out. “Bet they burn.”
“Good plan,” Reggie replied. This was more like it. Critical thinking. Teamwork. This was the Wounded Legion he remembered. This was the team he’d been waiting to emerge—and possibly just in time. Making it through group play was still far from guaranteed, but he’d need this level of play out of them if they were going to make a dent in the finals. “If they won’t play in the water, we make the land untenable.”
As expected, Diligent Squad scrambled ashore like extras in Jaws.
“You’d think they were afraid their juggernauts would shrink in the wash,” Chase said with a barely suppressed giggle.
“Can it, runt,” Lin snapped. “Just be ready to fire when we break the surface.”
Ghost Platoon closed in. Reggie knew that this wasn’t his forte. Part of being in command was knowing when to be part of the team and when to back off and let the specialists do their thing. While Vortex’s Plasma Launchers were great at setting fires, they were also short range compared to Diablo’s lasers.
“I’ve got a visual,” Lin reported. “They’re hunkering down at the jungle’s edge, lying in wait for us.”
“Let’s not disappoint them,” Reggie radioed back.
As he watched the tactical panel out of the corner of his eye, Reggie saw Yulong take a pair of hits to the head armor and one to its offhand shoulder. On the enemy panel, he saw massive holes rip into the Diligent Squad’s wireframes. Without June in sensor range, he couldn’t get exact damage numbers, but he knew the level of injury that Yulong’s Anti-Matter Projector could inflict.
Speaking of which…
“Hey,” he radioed out. “Why are you taking return fire? You’ve got them out-ranged.”
“I need water shallow enough to breach the surface,” Lin replied without stopping her outgoing barrage. “Gotta get in close because that’s where the shallows are.”
“Fall back,” Reggie ordered. “June, locate her a spot farther out, maybe the shallows of another island. Chase, work on lighting up those trees. Try not to get killed doing it.”
If Diablo was lost in this battle, it would fall to Reggie to get close enough. Vortex was a great fire-starter, but he’d take a ton of damage in the process.
“Delta-Two-Two,” June reported. “It’ll cover pretty much that whole island with Lin’s Anti-Matter rifle.”
“Do it!” Reggie ordered.
Chase managed to light the jungle on fire without getting his juggernaut crippled. Lin ducked below the water’s surface and headed for Delta-Two-Two. The rest of them fanned out and waited for Diligent Squad to flee into the water.
This was dirty. Diligent Squad had them outgunned but not out-ranged. They had Ghost Platoon on speed but had nowhere to run. They held the high ground but were rapidly running out of safe cover. This was the way to fight a war. Take every advantage the opponent had and slice it away with a surgeon’s precision, then hack them apart with a butcher’s cleaver.
Yulong scored a crit that went through a Demon’s knee cleanly, severing a key support strut. The juggernaut toppled to the jungle floor as the fires swept up to engulf it.
“Cheap kill,” Chase commented.
“No such thing,” Lin countered.
Reggie kep
t one eye out the front window of Vortex, the other on the downed Demon’s tactical wireframe. Its right leg was gone, but its armor elsewhere seemed intact. A tiny heat gauge on the right side rose ever faster.
[Sole Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 1/5]
Diligent Squad attempted to regroup on the far side of the island with the flames and the shallow rise of the island’s terrain as scant cover.
“Lost track of the Otsu,” June reported.
“Forget it,” Reggie replied. “There’s no time limit here. If we have to search all day for it, we’ll round that thing up. It’s not a threat.”
Reggie hoped he wasn’t overlooking some clever trap. Could an Otsu, rigged to explode, pose any hazard to Ghost Platoon? Mentally, he ran down the possible explosives that one could pack into a juggernaut that small. He concluded that it couldn’t. The entire thing could be packed with advanced explosives, and it couldn’t reliably take out any of them. Not to mention that it wouldn’t be very fast hauling that much of a payload. Its engine would be strained to the breaking point.
Idly, Reggie targeted one of the Jackals.
[Jackal[1] – N/A To Hit (out of range)]
Not surprising. 800m was the farthest he could fire his Plasma Launchers. Lin was engaging from more than triple that range, and Reggie was merely staying out of range of the Demon’s Particle Blaster, which was a weapon system so uncommon that Reggie had to look up its range prior to the battle. Capable of firing 1,600m, it put Reggie out of the fight until Diligent Squad decided it couldn’t sit there letting Lin take pot shots at them from 3km.
Reggie felt sorry for the poor guys on that little island. Not sorry enough to cut them a break but enough that he might track down the pilots and share a beer with them once this was all over with.
[Sole Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 2/5]
Ghost Platoon Page 15
