[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 3/119]
[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 5/119]
The juggernauts with long-range weapons pitched in while Reggie and a couple light juggernauts held back until the fight drew closer.
Every now and then there would be an update on the communications relay’s hit points, but that shelling was getting nowhere fast.
Reggie privately radioed June again. “We might want to think about rushing that relay tower,” he said. “This is a slow road to a total loss.”
“Primary mission is capturing this place,” June reminded him. “If we don’t take down the comm relay, it’s not the end of the mission.”
“But—”
Reggie heard a static pop and realized that June had blocked him.
Reggie sighed. There were Liberty Clan NPC juggernauts closing in. He took aim.
[Vulture[7] - 43% To Hit]
He fired. One Plasma Launcher hit; the other missed. Both were equally pointless in the grand scheme.
Reggie tried to embrace that Bushido ideal of assuming he was already a dead man and fighting with no fear or hesitation. He just couldn’t do it. Silent Shuriken had been hammering the opposite ideal into him. Victory at any cost—even honor. No, especially at the cost of honor.
“Drop ships!” Harper called out.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Reggie knew this was the beginning of the end.
[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 15/119]
[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 16/119]
They weren’t doing too badly about thinning the NPC defenders. But it was merely making the champ sweat before the inevitable knockout blow. The drop ships landed just about the time Yulong put a shot through a Shinigami’s cockpit.
[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 17/159]
Forty.
Forty more enemy juggernauts.
Reggie sighed. Even without the NPCs cluttering the battlefield, outnumbered two to one by competent players was a recipe for disaster.
“Shit! More drop ships!” Harper announced.
[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 17/219]
Another sixty. This was getting ridiculous.
“Any time,” Reggie muttered to himself.
“Don’t worry,” June replied, and Reggie realized her block on him had only been momentary. “We’ve still got this.”
“If you’ve got a rabbit to pull out of your hat, now would be a great time,” Reggie said in exasperation.
Reggie got a video call from Freedom Coach Napoleon. “Hey, King. Long time, no see. You doing a bucket list tour or something? Seeing how many of my planets you can die on? Well, get ready to cross this one off your—”
Reggie blocked the call. Getting pissed at the coalition’s leader wouldn’t help anything.
Harper sounded worn out. “More drop ships.”
“Jesus,” Reggie exclaimed. “How big a hammer does it take to swat a fly?”
Reggie could see them, off to the far side of the rest of the Liberty Clan forces and their allies, boxing in June’s suicide mission completely. There were too many to get a quick count before they reached the ground.
Down below the ridge, the onrushing forces continued to take losses without inflicting major damage on Wounded Legion—yet.
[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 21/219]
The latest drop ships had touched down. There hadn’t been an update in the number of enemy juggernauts.
Reggie received a video call. The face was unfamiliar but had a square jaw and a serious fix to its brow even rendered in shades of glowing blue. “Sgt. King? My name is Brent Cutler, Lieutenant, United States Marine Corp. I heard you were in a little trouble and could use a hand.”
[Alliance Request - Semper Fi]
Reggie stared for a moment. Then he remembered the call was live. He saluted. “Yes, sir! Thank you!” After that, he couldn’t hit the alliance button fast enough.
[Alliance Accepted - Semper Fi]
Reggie’s tactical display exploded with juggernauts. He had to tap through his settings to get a summary. Cutler had brought 300 juggernauts to the battle. The mini-map was awash in allied blue blips coming on like a locust swarm headed straight for the Liberty Coalition.
Still unable to quite grasp what was happening, Reggie switched back to his private radio channel with June. “You called in the marines!”
“The SPACE marines,” June corrected him.
Chapter Fifty-Six
After the battle, the victors gathered in the main supply depot warehouse of Tirith. The Liberty Clan and their allies from the D-O-Double-Gs of War and Mecha Frenzy had been wiped out. In the aftermath, Reggie got a chance to meet his saviors.
Brent Cutler went by the in-game handle Pounder99, and he had a handshake like a bench vise. “Glad to meet you in person, such as it is,” he greeted Reggie with a uniform cap tucked under his other arm. “Lt. Mallet told your story, and… well, me and the boys couldn’t turn down a chance to join in the scrap.”
Without offending anyone, Reggie glanced over at June. Pounder99 followed his gaze.
June smiled bashfully. “He didn’t know. This was a surprise for him. He was too proud to ask for help himself.”
“Not that I don’t appreciate the hell out of it, though, Lieutenant,” Reggie said.
“Please,” Pounder99 replied. “Either stick to Pounder or just call me Brent. I’m just a player here.”
[Alliance Request - Aegis]
Reggie cocked his head. “We expecting more seats on this bus?” he asked June.
“They were waiting for the battle to die down. Semper Fi was the closest. The rest worried they might get in the way.”
[Alliance Request - Boat Doctors]
[Alliance Request - Mile High]
[Alliance Request - 21 Gun Salute]
“Who are these other guys?” Reggie asked as the requests poured in.
June, who had been seeing the messages at the same time, counted them off on her fingers. “Shipyard crew out of Newport News. A bunch of scientists and techs at the Office of Naval Research. Faculty and staff at the Air Force Academy. And last but not least, a loose group of army brats based out of Ft. Bragg.”
There really wasn’t a decision here. Reggie tapped the layered menus, each flying away as he dealt with them.
[Alliance Accepted - Aegis]
[Alliance Accepted - Boat Doctors]
[Alliance Accepted - Mile High]
[Alliance Accepted - 21 Gun Salute]
Reggie went into a series of menus while the commanders of his new alliance stood watching.
[Enemy Strength - Liberty Clan - D-O-Double-Gs of War - Mecha Frenzy - 552 Planets - 976 players]
[Allied Strength - Wounded Legion - Semper Fi - Aegis - Boat Doctors - Mile High - 21 Gun Salute - 452 planets - 812 players]
“Wow,” was all Reggie could say.
Pounder99 grinned lopsidedly. “Well, top brass won’t allow the Valhalla West sleep rigs into a combat zone or aboard any ships. But I think just about every armed services faction on the server is with you, King.”
Reggie shook the lieutenant’s hand again. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” Pounder99 replied. “Can’t speak for the rest of the alliance, but saving the day is what marines are built for. Reading about your situation, we couldn’t just sit on the sidelines.”
“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned a story,” Reggie said.
Lin raised a tentative hand. “I may have submitted a fluff piece to Armed Forces Online about Wounded Legion and Valhalla West.”
“That’s not fluff, ma’am,” Pounder99 corrected politely. “Bunch of Purple Heart recipients getting hounded by a bunch of cowards? That’s a bugle call.”
“I… I think only June would have been awarded a Purple Heart,” Reggie said. “Chase and Lin are civilians, an
d I know I haven’t—”
June snorted, cutting him off. “You’re kidding me, right? Reggie, you were practically killed out in that desert. Your Purple Heart’s on the bedside table right beside you.”
Reggie blinked. Of course. It should have been obvious—so obvious that no one had bothered mentioning it to him. Certainly not the hospital staff who initially hid the extents of his injuries from him. “Well, there’s still Frank…”
“Colonel McCoy?” Pounder99 asked. “From what I hear, that old-timer’s got more lead than copper in his blood. Don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise.”
“We’re still outnumbered,” Reggie said. “But now we’ve got a fighting chance.”
“Outnumbered?” June asked. “How you figure?”
Reggie read off the results of his comparison.
June snorted. “Who cares about player counts? We’ve got more soldiers.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Back at the Green Zone, Reggie was reinvigorated. The War Room map wasn’t looking so lopsided after all. Reggie had switched from showing individual faction to an alliance filter. Freedom Coach Napoleon and his cronies were shown in blue. Reggie’s alliance with Wounded Legion as lead faction was the red blob that loomed over the blue.
He’d tried to bow out gracefully and allow Pounder99 to lead the alliance. After all, Semper Fi was providing the majority of the firepower backing Reggie now. But Pounder99 had insisted that this whole war was being fought in the name of standing up to malicious aggression, and that Reggie had been the one to inspire the counterattack.
“All right,” Reggie said, addressing a room with a few of his key advisers and representatives from across the alliance. “We need a strategy to take on and wear down a larger force. We’d been having some limited success with strike-and-retreat feints but didn’t have the manpower to hold onto our gains. I suggest that we scale up that tactic and plan to fortify our conquests.”
“Why?” asked BomberMan, leader of Mile High.
“Because now we have the muscle to back up our guerrilla tactics,” Reggie explained. “We can dig in and hold on as the Liberty Coalition tries to take it back.”
“No,” BomberMan clarified. “I meant why the feint? We’re not a bunch of scrubs. We can stand and punch with these guys. So what if they’ve got a few more guys on paper. They don’t have the experience and planning skills.”
Reggie paused, sinking into thought. “What if we feint but actually throw the punch? We’ve got the manpower now, right? Why not split our forces, figure out what we can hit with limited numbers, and time a major assault somewhere else as they’re scrambling to respond?”
Pounder99 nodded, arms crossed. “I like it. Multi-pronged attack.”
“We should hit the allies first,” June said. “Make them think twice about throwing in with Liberty Clan.”
CaptainAdmiral from the Boat Doctors pointed to the galactic map holograph. “Which one, though? Mecha Frenzy is an offset faction based out of Asia. We could hit them when most of their player base is offline.”
Pounder studied his fellow commanders. “How you boys fixed for round-the-clock operations? You know, keep the pressure up?”
Around the War Room, heads shook.
“I’ve got coverage from Eastern to Hawaii time,” said RiseOfTheCorporal from 21 Gun Salute. “But nothing overseas.”
Reggie tapped in a command to the map controls. Mecha Frenzy took on a lighter shade of blue, separating it visually from the Liberty Clan and D-O-Double-Gs of War. “That’s settled, then. We hit Mecha Frenzy hard, then offer generous peace terms to drop out of the coalition. I want six soft targets and one site for a major raid by 2100 hours tonight.”
He wondered how many of his fellow leaders would be spending their waking hours planning and plotting. Would real, honest-to-God military work be compromised by the distraction of a major Armored Souls invasion plan?
No, Reggie told himself. These guys were all professionals. Gaming was a hobby for them, nothing more. But they seemed to understand that it was something more than that to Reggie, otherwise none of them would have been here tonight.
As the group broke up, Chase slunk off by himself. Reggie had wondered what it had been like for him, a civilian in the room with all those career military personnel. Reggie headed off after him.
Chase was in the machine shop when Reggie caught up.
“What’s the trouble?” Reggie asked. “You were unusually quiet that briefing.”
“I’m fine,” Chase said. “It’s good. We needed the help. No one built Liberty Clan with a thermal exhaust port straight to the main reactor. We needed manpower and firepower. We got both.”
As Chase stared blankly in the direction of the machinery, Reggie leaned to angle himself into Chase’s view. “You don’t seem happy about that.”
Chase put up a hand and forced a smile. “I’m good. Really. Just kind of a third wheel when you don’t need game advice or kooky military strategies. We’re firmly in the box, and I do my best thinking outside it. Ring the bell tomorrow night, and I’ll be there to answer.”
“Good,” Reggie said with a nod. He was no Doc Zimmerman. If Chase had something bottled up, the kid was welcome to keep it bottled.
Chase ran a hand along a juggernaut-sized sword lying on one of the workstations. “I miss him a little. Not the same without the old guy cracking wise with lingo from the Three Stooges era.”
Reggie came up beside him and inspected the craftsmanship of the weapon. It was sleek for something so immense. Rather than the blocky, almost cartoonish broadswords Gremlin normally wielded in battle, this was—a ninja sword. “This is too small for a Tiger-class juggernaut,” he pointed out. “You don’t think…”
Chase shrugged. “He was always giving me a hard time about playing ‘pajama cowboy.’ But this is a pretty good scaled-up rendition of a ninjato from Silent Shuriken.”
“He’ll be back,” Reggie assured him. “June just said it was a legal matter. His family’s making noise at the hospital over him playing Armored Souls. It’ll get sorted out. He’d want you to have it, I’m sure.”
Chase snorted, shaking his head. “Nah. Nice gesture, but I’m a laser and plasma guy. I’ll save my stabbing for Cowboys in Pajamas nights.”
Reggie nodded solemnly.
“You take it,” Chase told him.
“Me? I don’t use a sword.”
“Neither does Lin, but Yulong carries one just in case. And let’s face it. You’re useless in a fight these days. OK. Well, maybe not useless useless, but you’re two pounds of firepower in a ten-pound sack. You’re command and control, plus a drunken monkey with a plasma pistol.”
“Thanks,” Reggie replied dryly.
Chase stepped aside and swept a hand toward the sword. “Don’t thank me. Thank Frank.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Reggie was part of the main battle fleet. Semper Fi actually owned and operated a drop ship carrier with a capacity of forty ships. When he’d asked Pounder99 what it cost to run a vessel like that, all Reggie got was a wink and an assurance that it was a lot.
Wounded Legion had split their forces up among the various minor battles as a show of solidarity.
At 2030 hours, June had landed an assault team on Mysidia IV. They were the leader of a wave of would-be feints to draw a response from Freedom Coach Napoleon’s rapid response teams.
Mysidia IV was home to a group of scientists working on combining strange, pseudoscientific forces to produce new types of weaponry. Chase had claimed it was a boondoggle, and that Valhalla West wouldn’t allow the game-breaking weapons they were researching into the game, but it still seemed like a key operation to disrupt in order to sour Mecha Frenzy on their participation in this war.
After all, Mecha Frenzy had signed up to beat the snot out of a 3-planet faction, not get experimental research planets wrested from their grasp.
2032 hours saw Lin and her strike team of thirty juggernauts to a
hit a Juki-sen Heavy Industry factory on Midgar VII. If Mecha Frenzy wanted to buy or repair Beam Cannon or Anti-Matter Projector weapons, they were going to have to pay full price for them after tonight. Reggie was hoping that after they took custody, Wounded Legion could make some quick upgrades for their newer members.
Also at 2032, Spike and Chipz were set to land on Melmond Prime. It was a planet of deep ore mines and a vast variety of valuable minerals. There was nothing fancy about the place. It’s only other notable feature was a scientist named Dr. Unne, who was a specialist in metallurgy. Capturing him would provide a 5 percent bonus to the mining output of any planet he was stationed on. Reggie was tempted to evac the guy to Green Zone the instant the planet was under their control, but he was going to trust Pounder99’s assurances that they could hold it.
At 2034 hours, Chase would be up to bat. His mission wasn’t conquest but sabotage. Mecha Frenzy had set up a relay station on Troia, making it a valuable logistical point in their empire but not much use to a conquering enemy. Chase’s orders were to just destroy as much infrastructure as possible before bugging out.
2035 was when Monty and SwampFox were scheduled to take down a garrison on Pravoka. Theirs was set to be a quick strike and rapid takeover. A glut of NPC defenders there were slated for dispersal into the rest of the newly captured territory that the Wounded Legion Alliance planned to take.
Now, it was 2045. There had been time for Freedom Coach Napoleon to make his move, pick his battles, and decide which of his ally’s planets were worth fighting over.
“Begin descent,” Reggie ordered. At his command, the forty drop ships aboard Semper Fi’s flagship launched. Their destination was Nibelheim, which was as close to a capital as Mecha Frenzy had outside their actual headquarters.
There were eight cities on the planet’s surface. Reggie and the alliance forces needed to capture them all to turn the planet to their side. It was an ambitious venture, but the other commanders felt up to the challenge. At this point, Reggie wasn’t going to rein in their enthusiasm. The goal tonight was to break Mecha Frenzy off from the Liberty Coalition. Even if they ended up keeping none of the planets they took, the blow to Freedom Coach Napoleon’s strength would be worth it.
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