June arrived shortly thereafter, but the added firepower of her Direct Fire Ballistic Cannon wasn’t much of an upgrade. Artemis was built to scout, same as Harper’s Chipmunk. The only difference in firepower came down to the medium chassis.
Transmitter Tower: 74/80
Transmitter Tower: 73/80
Transmitter Tower: 70/80
Transmitter Tower: 69/80
Reggie wished he could squeeze more juice out of his engines, but Vortex’s Wolverine chassis was built for engagement, not maneuvering.
Tim got there in his Vulture right about the time Ellie arrived with her Gargoyle.
Transmitter Tower: 52/80
Transmitter Tower: 38/80
Then a notification blinked on Reggie’s screen, angry and urgent.
ALCON PRIME DISTRESS SIGNAL INTERCEPTED
“This is Dr. Martin Bonds of Uvanica Biomedical. We are under attack by hostile ground forces. Requesting immediate assistance.”
“Cease fire!” Reggie ordered.
“What?” Harper demanded.
The game had changed. What had started off as a simple ground assault on a lightly defended scientific manufacturing outpost had turned into a mad scramble to get off the anvil before the hammer came down.
“This is our planet,” Reggie said. “We’ve got to get control of it and call off whatever assault is headed this way. Power down, get into enviro-suits, and get into that factory.”
Transmitter Tower: 37/80
“I said cease fire!” Reggie snapped.
But it had been a parting shot. No one else did further damage to the tower as the legion broke off and headed for the main building.
This was the part Reggie always dreaded.
He pulled on his helmet and gloves. They sealed against his suit to protect him from the vacuum outside. Vortex peeled open at his command, disgorging him like a C-130 on stilts. Without proper equipment on hand to climb to the ground, Reggie dropped the five meters, landing in a couch.
Shocks of pain jolted through Reggie’s joints upon impact. Times like these, it was hard to keep ASHARI’s assurances in mind that this was only a game.
Frank pulled up beside him and jumped out of Gremlin. The old coot just grinned at Reggie’s obvious discomfort. “See? Toughness. Hardly felt a thing.” His voice echoed in Reggie’s helmet but still had a smug edge to it.
Reggie grunted as he got to his feet. “Thanks for the tip. I’ll respec out of Command as soon as I scrounge the credits.”
“Ho! Put the brakes on that horse, cowboy. Don’t be hasty,” Frank said as he drew his blaster pistol and headed inside. Most of the assault team were already inside.
Reggie ran to catch up.
This was the first he’d gotten a chance to see a Commando up close and personal—at least in Armored Souls. Most pilots optimized for juggernaut combat. Ellie had opted to go for a Shooting build that made her far more effective on missions like this than out in the cockpit of her Gargoyle.
Ellie led the way, picking off automated turrets before they even got shots off. Her positron rifle probably cost as much as some juggernaut weapons, but it was paying off here. She just didn’t miss. Ever. It was a little freaky.
The halls of the medical facility were gleaming white like someone wanted to shoot a weird music video with a futuristic look. “Real” futuristic had always looked more practical and plastic in Reggie’s mind.
Some of the doors opened at a simple command on the adjoining computer pad. Others yielded to sustained blaster fire. The factory had security protocols, but they were meant more for thieves than military raids.
Reggie had a flashback to Silent Shuriken and wondered if thievery missions in Armored Souls were even practical.
“Found them!” Ellie said. She was ahead of the rest of the team, her radioed voice sounding as if she were right beside Reggie despite being around the next corner.
There was a heavier looking door, secured with magnetic bolts, barring their path.
“You got breaching charges?” Ellie’s brother Rich asked.
Ellie unclipped a canister from her belt. “Don’t I always?”
“You done a lot of ground raids?” Reggie asked cautiously.
“I live for this shit,” Ellie said. “You won’t believe the missions you can take if you’re willing to crawl around in buildings instead of just leveling them. Now everyone, stand back!”
She planted the charge near the control console. The panel was probably waiting for some ten-digit password, but it was getting a couple kilos of some technobabble explosive substance instead.
Reggie waved everyone around the corner, shoving them to speed them out of the blast zone. He was just around the corner, last to reach safety, when a huge concussion rocked the facility.
A cloud of smoke and debris washed past.
Ellie was into the cloud before the environmental vents even got started clearing it. Everyone was still wearing vacuum-rated helmets. There was little reason to waste the element of surprise when they were clearly in position to take better advantage than the local nerd brigade who worked here.
Reggie switched over to infrared as the smoke obscured his vision. The blast zone was awash in the red spectrum, but on the far side, he saw the gaggle of scientists with their hands raised. He switched on his speaker and mic to speak with them.
“—render,” he caught a familiar voice mid-sentence. “Just don’t hurt us.” It was Dr. Martin Bonds from the trespassing message. His song had changed in a hurry once Ellie held a positron rifle aimed at him.
“We’re not here to kill anyone,” Reggie said. “Call off the rescue, and consider yourselves under new management.”
Dr. Bonds nodded hurriedly. He shielded his nose and mouth in the crook of his elbow as Ellie herded him out of the safe room. A short while later, an alert popped up that brought a smile to Reggie’s face.
[Scientist Recruited - Dr. Martin Bonds]
[Primary Objective Complete: Force the Surrender of Alcon Prime to Wounded Legion]
[Scientist Recruited - Dr. Gayle Adams]
[Scientist Recruited - Dr. Yuan Chang]
[Scientist Recruited - Dr. Boris Grezny]
A knot untied itself in Reggie’s stomach. He hadn’t needed to turn into the bad guy to conquer some poor, defenseless science outpost.
[Mission Successful - 1,100 XP - 12,000Cr]
Hopefully, that was more like what his new recruits wanted. If he kept gaining planets, Reggie might even be able to keep paying that kind of rate.
Chapter Nine
They hadn’t even left Alcon Prime when the news turned sour on Wounded Legion’s most recent acquisition. Reggie was touring the production floor, admiring the detail that Valhalla West put into stuff that no player was ever going to care about. Reggie was looking down a conveyor belt of little glass vials when the radio in his helmet crackled to life.
“Reggie, we’ve got a problem,” June said. Her frequency indicator in the corner of Reggie’s vision showed that this was a personal message just to him. He matched the frequency before replying.
“What’ve we got?” he asked quickly, hurrying for the door. Regardless of the problem, there was nothing he was going to solve admiring the window dressing on a machine that printed credits for Wounded Legion. Valhalla West could have made the place a literal black box for all he cared about the how of it.
“That rescue mission these dorks called in isn’t getting called off,” June replied. “Do we bail or hang in and fight for it?”
Reggie swore with the mic closed. It never helped showing your troops that you were rattled. Alone in the production facility, he had the luxury of blowing his lid in private. He punched the housing for a robotic arm before opening his mic to reply. “How bad is it?”
“One drop ship on the way,” June said. “Dr. Bonds doesn’t know what they’re sending. Sounds like whoever they hired is getting paid by the previous owners of this planet, not him.”
T
his was a gamble. A coin flip at best. The soldier in Reggie told him to fall back. Without proper intel, there was no point in engaging an unknown foe on non-vital ground.
Or was this vital?
Alcon Prime was now a part of Wounded Legion. Maybe it was new. Maybe he hardly knew a thing about it except the credits it was producing on a daily basis. But it was his. Theirs.
The gamer and faction leader side of Reggie demanded that he fight to hold onto his turf. He’d taken this place fair and square, and Wounded Legion wasn’t going to hang onto territory it wasn’t willing to fight for.
Reggie switched to the faction-wide radio channel. “All hands, battle stations! Mount up. We’ve got incoming trouble, and they’re looking to take back this rock we just secured. Lin, have you got the drop ship relocated yet?”
“Yeah,” Lin replied. “It’s inside the defensive perimeter—I almost said that with a straight face. Look, you want me to load up the scientists so if we lose this factory we can still bug out and keep them?”
Reggie paused. He hadn’t thought of that. In his mind, the scientists were as much a part of the factory as the production lines. But they weren’t.
“Negative,” Reggie replied, trying to make it sound like he was sure of this course of action. “We’re not giving up on this place. I don’t want you worrying about contingencies for losing. That’s my job. You get to Yulong and man the perimeter. Hell, you might be the only one with a shot to take out a drop ship before it lands.”
“Roger that,” Lin replied. “Even the sexist part.”
It took Reggie a second to process that he’d told her to “man” the perimeter. That was just the term for it. At least Lin was on her way to follow the order, even if she didn’t like the term.
Reggie punched up the quick-start guide to player-generated missions. Luckily, the UI was context sensitive. The first option was just what he wanted.
[Primary Objective: Destroy All Enemy Juggernauts 0/???]
Secondary objectives didn’t matter right now. Reggie had neither the time nor the mental bandwidth to spackle in the gaps of what this mission required. This was going to be nothing more than a dig-in-and-pray operation.
He’d been there before. That was standard operating procedure when coming under unexpected fire. Hunker down. Shoot back. Wait for a breather to figure out what’s going on. The key difference was that there was no CENTCOM officer on the radio waiting to apprise Reggie of the latest intel. It was either sort this mess out themselves or read it in the battle report after they lost.
“Got a visual,” Harper said. He was already back in his Chipmunk. Nice to have eyes on the enemy drop ship, but Reggie would have rather had Lin or Chase standing by to fry whatever came out of it. “Landing about three kilos out. I’m seeing five… six… eight… looks like ten juggernauts on the way. We’ve got even odds.”
Reggie snarled. Even odds sucked. The best generals avoided a fair fight like they avoided mine fields and Russian winters. Almost by definition, a fair fight was as likely to be lost as won. But numbers alone didn’t tell the whole story. “Any idea whether they’re player or NPC pilots?”
“They’re all the same model,” June reported.
TARGET DATA RECEIVED
Good. Someone he knew and trusted was in visual range. It was still possible that a bunch of player pilots had organized themselves enough to unify on a common juggernaut build, but Reggie’s experience was that players did what they wanted. He had ten juggernauts under his command and not a single duplicate. Diversity was harder to manage but carried greater upside for a commander who knew how to make use of it.
“Lin, you have a firing solution?” Reggie asked, checking the listing of Tengu-class heavy juggernauts that sprang up in his helmet’s tactical display. Until he got to Vortex, that was all the detail he’d see. The Tengu was generally considered inferior to the Tiger—Frank’s preferred ride—but they blew away anything Bravo Platoon brought to the table. The sooner Alpha Platoon started chipping away at them, the better.
“Um, do you mean can I shoot them?” Lin replied. “You’ll know I have a shot when you start seeing them lose armor.”
“Incoming,” Chase shouted. “LRM barrage from the Tengus.”
Reggie gritted his teeth and ran faster. If only he hadn’t been preoccupied checking out his new holdings instead of securing them. Guilt gnawed at him as Wounded Legion withstood a barrage of enemy fire without him there to command.
The corridors only felt endless until they ended. Reggie would have breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing the exit to the factory if his Breath Meter wasn’t empty. Yet another point in favor of Frank’s Toughness build. The old buzzard wouldn’t have broken a sweat running through the whole base.
The sky flashed with silent laser fire. Beneath Reggie’s booted feet, the ground rumbled with juggernaut footsteps and explosive impacts. The noiseless clash would have been eerie without hearing the radio chatter of his troops.
“Focus fire on my mark,” June ordered, commanding the battle until Reggie arrived to take charge. “Forget fancy targeting. Go for center of mass, and just put damage downrange.”
Reggie scrambled up the ladder built into Vortex’s leg. The cockpit high above called to him, still yawning open and exposed to the wispy, vacuum-like atmosphere of Alcon Prime. Meter by meter, it drew nearer.
“Blasted lasers,” Frank muttered. “I swear that was aimed right at the bugger. It swerved! I saw it!”
The cockpit was only a couple meters away.
“Took out a leg,” Lin reported. “Designate a new target.”
“Refocus,” June responded calmly, like the eye of a storm amid the chaos of battle. “New mark. Fire at will.”
Reggie yearned to see the wireframes of the enemy juggernauts, to see their loadouts, to watch the hit points of his allies’ armor to make sure no one needed to fall back to cover.
The cockpit was within reach. Reggie grasped the handhold and pulled himself up.
“They’re almost in optimal range,” Chase radioed as Reggie buckled and Vortex’s cockpit closed him in. “And ow! Those fucking missiles. Be nice if the AI cared about how much those things cost.”
There was a hiss as the cockpit pressurized. Reggie took control of Vortex, and the Wolverine-class juggernaut lurched into the fray.
Already, Tengu[5] was out of action, missing a leg and lying facedown in the Alcon Prime wilderness. June had marked Tengu[7] as the defenders’ next target, and its armor was a riddled mess of damaged plates all across the front torso, head, arms, and legs.
“Lin, if you’ve got the Gunnery for it, take independent targets and start kneecapping Tengus,” Reggie ordered. Like many mid-range heavy juggernauts, the Tengu designers didn’t know quite how they wanted to balance weaponry and armor. They carried too many weapons systems and skimped on the limb armor. With Lin’s Sniper 3 perk, two shots would take out a leg.
“Roger that,” Lin replied.
Reggie waited.
He was command and control. His build wasn’t optimized for long-range combat. His Plasma Launchers wouldn’t be any use until 900m. The rest of the team kept up fire with a mix of long-range weaponry. Ballistic shells and Beam Cannon-Ls kept a steady if not devastating barrage on the invading force, while Lin’s Anti-Matter Projector did the heavy lifting.
A series of flashes across the division status screen marked the arrival of the latest volley of long-range missiles from the Tengus. Bravo Platoon took the worst of it.
1,100m
1,000m
900m
Reggie opened fire, and Chase added his own Mk2 Plasma Launchers to the mix.
Tengu[8] went down with a missing leg, and Lin switched targets.
Tengu[7] pressed onward into the teeth of Wounded Legion’s withering fire.
Torso (Tengu[7]): 23/90
Torso (Tengu[7]): 16/90
Torso (Tengu[7]): 13/90
Torso (Tengu[7]): 5/90
The
Tengu burst open from a blast of Chase’s Plasma Launcher. “Toasty!” Chase sang.
[Primary Objective: Destroy All Enemy Juggernauts 1/10]
Despite being out of the action, Tengu[5] and Tengu[8] didn’t count as kills because they were still operational. If Wounded Legion got this to 8/10, Reggie would be happy to call that a win while they leisurely put laser holes in the damaged juggernauts.
“June, keep marking targets,” Reggie ordered.
“Anyone else plinking off these things like hailstones on a truck windshield?” Harper asked. “Permission to circle around and capture the drop ship.”
Reggie considered just for a moment. That Chipmunk was a hood ornament in this fight. They already knew where the enemy was, and Harper’s weapons were spitballs compared to what the rest of the division was running.
“You know the risks?”
“My armor’s thinner than an M&M shell, but I’m insured, and I’m pretty sure the bonus XP will level me up,” Harper said. “No guts, no glory. Right?”
“Permission granted,” Reggie said. “Good hunting.”
Stealing drop ships didn’t work on player factions. It was just a game-balance thing. Stranding players on foreign planets wasn’t fun for anyone but the thieves, and it ruined gameplay in the early alpha testing from what Reggie had heard. But for a budding faction like Wounded Legion, a spare drop ship could mean running concurrent missions on different planets.
If Harper wanted to kiss ass and steal him on, Reggie was willing to let him try.
“I’m going with him,” Rich said. “I’m taking a lot of damage here and not getting anywhere.”
“Negative,” Reggie ordered. “Take cover, and wait this out.”
“Nah,” Rich said. “I’ll be fine. I could use the XP too.”
With that, Rich took his Chi-Ha and followed the circuitous path out of the factory compound after Harper.
With the oxygen pressurized in his cockpit, Reggie tore off his helmet and wiped sweat from his brow. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried not to picture Rich getting himself killed out there.
Wounded Legion_a mech LitRPG novel Page 4
