Date: 2017-11-23 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction
Description: It’s time for our sergeant to become a general. Reggie King lives his life in the Armored Souls universe. But there’s more to the game than taking missions as they come. Even turning a secret asteroid base into a kickass man cave only holds appeal for so long. There comes a time when a platoon of mercenaries either needs to join up with a major faction… Or create one. With the founding of Wounded Legion, Reggie takes on responsibility for building and recruiting an elite fighting force capable of conquering planets. But while crummy little independent worlds and uninhabited rocks are easy to c
Publisher: Magical Scrivener Press
Rights: Copyright 2017 Xavier P. Hunter. All rights reserved.

Wounded Legion

Xavier P. Hunter

Magical Scrivener

Copyright © 2017 Xavier P. Hunter

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

Magical Scrivener Press, 22 Hawkstead Hollow
Nashua, NH 03063
www.magicalscrivener.com

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Ordering Information: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address above.

Xavier P. Hunter— First Edition

ISBN: 978-1-942642-62-6

Printed in the United States of America

Chapter One

A wildfire raged, reflected flames glinting off the polished hulls of the Wyverns caught in the conflagration. Perched on an outcropping of rock that served as an island in the sea of fire, Reggie watched from the cockpit of Vortex.

Laser fire lanced out from Diablo. Chase was using the overheating enemy juggernauts as target practice.

“What’s the idea?” Frank demanded over the platoon’s radio frequency. “The buggers are burning up already. Maybe start cutting a firebreak to get us all out of here.”

One of the Wyverns taking laser fire from Chase succumbed to the damage it was taking.

[Primary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 23/27]

“Because this isn’t a weenie roast,” Chase radioed back. “Lasers don’t use ammo. I’m just speeding this up.”

“Got a date?” Lin asked from the cockpit of Yulong.

“Do I?” Chase asked in reply. He opened fire on another of the overheated juggernauts that stood inert and on thermal lockdown. It vented steam from its engine casing as it was officially destroyed.

[Primary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 24/27]

“Cool it, guys,” Reggie said. He relaxed in his seat, monitoring enemy juggernauts in his tactical display, watching hit point bars creep from yellow into red. “Keep playing it safe. Shoot ‘em if you care, but don’t go taking any unnecessary risks. It’s a long way between level-ups; I don’t want to see anyone going back to square one.”

“It’s a barbecue,” June pointed out. “We can’t lose at this point.”

[Primary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 25/27]

“Never say that!” Frank shouted. “Goldarnit. That’s the best way to fuck up a sure thing.”

“Fine,” Chase said. “I’m heading back to the drop ship, then.”

“Wait!” Frank and June shouted in unison.

“Leave him be,” Reggie said. Of all of them, he’d studied the platoon’s loadouts the closest. So long as he held back on using those lasers on Diablo, Chase didn’t have to worry about overheating, even walking through the flames. The red-painted juggernaut was designed for heat management. Fluid lines running all throughout would cycle coolant through heat sinks designed to take the load of plasma launchers.

[Primary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 26/27]

“C’mon, slowpokes,” Chase called back to them. “Last one on the drop ship is buying drinks.”

Reggie watched the fluctuating temperature gauge on Diablo. From his command console, he was hooked into the data from all the juggernauts in the platoon. He tried to estimate how the rest of them would fare taking on that kind of heat load. His own Vortex might be OK at low speed, not taxing his major systems. Yulong was probably fine. June’s Artemis and Frank’s Gremlin would cook.

Better to maintain a positive example. Reggie stayed put.

[Primary Objective Complete: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 27/27]

“Well, now what?” Frank asked glumly. The fields around them continued to burn. The convoy had been consumed in flames. The massive contingent of enemy juggernauts guarding them had finally all given up their pilots.

Reggie sighed and watched the retreating Diablo, all but fireproof, taunting them by dancing an awkward shuffle through the wildfire. “We wait.”

[Mission Successful - 4,100 XP - 13,200Cr]

It wasn’t even that big a haul.

Chapter Two

Back at base, the platoon relaxed. June was tending the bar, pouring out requests even as she consumed her own drink. Frank and Chase shot pool. Lin flipped through esports channels on the big screen TV.

Reggie shopped.

Tablet in hand, he browsed through the Valhalla West in-game shop. None of them spent much on their juggernauts these days. They had the mission grind down to a science. Missile loadouts were kept to a minimum. Energy weapons and melee attacks were the rule of the day. They picked missions that were impossible to fail, nailed every secondary objective and surprise bonus mission, and raked in a steady stream of credits and XP.

“What do you guys think?” Reggie asked the room at large. “I can get us an Olympic swimming pool, which could double as a spot to hang out in lounge chairs with drinks. Or, if we want, I could afford a full boxing gym. Might be fun to practice hand-to-hand combat and blow off steam. Oh, what about a dune-buggy race course? We could customize it, maybe run it around the drop ship landing pad.”

Pool balls cracked on the billiard table. Chase straightened after making his shot. “Why bother?”

Reggie looked up. “What?”

June thumped down a pint glass at the bar. “What’s gotten into you? You’ve missed three nights in the past two weeks, and now you’re blowing off Reggie’s shopping spree that’s going to land us a swimming pool?”

“You want to swim? Go play Beach Spa,” Chase countered, walking over to the bar with his pool cue. “You want boxing? There’s Squared Circle Gladiator. All these add-ons and upsells are just assets from other games. Hell, even fucking is straight out of Cathouse Playtime.”

“Don’t much care for Squared Circle Gladiator,” Frank observed, walking around the billiard table, eyeing the colored balls for a potential shot. “Tries to make it the damn 1950s again, and they can’t pull it off. I don’t want brown leather gloves and a wooden mouth guard. I don’t need some cranky old fart with a Philly accent telling me to keep my hands up.”

“That what you’ve been doing these nights?” Reggie asked. “Playing another game?”

Chase’s grin was cat-like. “Silent Shuriken.”

Lin frumpled her brow. The remote for the TV fell limp at her side. “Wait. That’s not even out yet. Closed alpha was just announced yesterday.”

June came around the bar, eyes fixed on Chase. “He got the internship.”

“What internship?” Reggie asked.

“We talk outside the game,” Lin said as if that explained it all.

June stepped in to clarify. “Chase was trying to get a job with Valhalla West.”

The possibilities sprang to Reggie’s mind. “You have access to the internal calculations? You can find the formulas to optimize ranged energy combat? The XP formula for player-generated missions? The probability for special missions getting offered?”

Chased backed off a step, hands up to ward away the onrushing Reggie. “Whoa. Hold your load, lover boy. I’m working backend, quality control only, and only for Silent Shuriken.”

“What’s it like?” June asked.

Chase shrugged with an amused smirk plastered onto his features. “You guys want to come see?”

“YES!” Lin practically burst their eardrums shouting.

“Close alpha,” June pointed out. “We can’t get in.”

Reggie chuckled. “I don’t think Chase would have said anything if he didn’t have alpha keys to offer.”

Chase shrugged. “Maaaaaaybe.”

[Player logged out - Chase]

[Player logged out - Doughboy]

[Player logged out - June]

[Player logged out - Dragonlady]

One by one, Reggie’s platoon vanished. He set down the tablet filled with expensive toys. Well, if everyone else was going, he might as well see what the fuss was about.

[Player logged out - King]

Chapter Three

Player creation was virtually non-existent. Reggie chose the male avatar, picked a color of uniform, and found himself in game with the body of his Armored Souls character, name and all.

“Not a lot of frills,” Reggie said to Frank, who was dressed in the same Halloween ninja costume as him. Both had opted for the traditional all-black attire, covering them head to toe with only their hands and a band of bare skin across the eyes exposed.

The entry room to the game had a mirrored wall, and Frank took in his reflection. “Look like a damn toddler with a onesie pulled up over his nose.”

Reggie led the way out the room’s only door, and they found Chase waiting for them. His outfit was far from the base models offered at creation. Valhalla West’s newest intern was decked out in a red-and-black costume that was as much armor as cloth, and his mask had a breathing filter that made his voice scratchy and hollow when he greeted them.

“Welcome… to Silent Shuriken,” he said with affected menace. In the blink of an eye, Chase pulled out a straight-edged sword and sliced through a stand of decorative bamboo plants that lined the garden path of some Japanese lord’s manor house.

“The hell is this place?” Frank asked, wandering down the flagstone path and looking in all directions.

“A digital rendition of an anime version of feudal Japan,” Chase said. “I’ve already pointed out a ton of historical anachronisms, but the lead designer is more concerned with aesthetics and market expectations than accuracy. So take it all with a grain of salt.”

“Sure,” Reggie said absently. The whole feel of the place was alien. The army had never sent him to Japan, and he wasn’t the sort who’d traveled abroad while on leave. “So what, is this like Ninja Gaiden land?”

Chase snorted. “Forgot I was escorting two relics around. C’mon, gramps. Let’s go grab ultra-gramps before he gets into trouble.”

But before they could catch up with Frank, a door opened in the middle of thin air. Lin and June stepped out cautiously, gawking at the splendor of the scenery. Once they caught sight of Chase, their wondrous expressions turned sour.

Reggie had a quick guess as to why.

“Who thought it was a good idea to dress us like this?” Lin demanded.

She and June were wearing palette-swapped versions of the same outfit, with Lin in green and June in yellow. They were similar in style to the basic costumes Reggie and Frank had spawned with, barring a few key differences. First, while the male outfits had been close-fitting but loose, Lin and June’s attire was practically painted on. If the game had been governed by real-world materials, Reggie would have imagined it was all Lycra. The head coverings also left their faces fully exposed, but a scarf-like strip slung over their shoulders looked like it could fix that.

The object of dispute, however, was the exposed skin that made the uniform tops something of a hybrid between swimwear and an evening gown. Cleavage showed through a window at the front that had no practical combat or stealth purpose imaginable.

Chase looked them both over. “A genius, obviously.”

Lin drew her sword, but it was a wooden practice blade. Chase didn’t even flinch as she held it angled at his throat. “Fix this, or I’ll find out how you fare in a real fight.”

Chase smirked. Lin lunged. The wooden sword caught nothing but air. As Chase ducked below the strike with the reflexes of a meth-addicted mongoose, he punched out, catching Lin in the midsection.

Reggie’s eyes widened.

Lin flew, rocketing through the air as if she’d been fired from a circus cannon. She struck a stonewall and left a spider-webbed crack in the stonework.

“Pretty sweet, huh?” Chase asked with a grin.

Lin stumbled to her feet.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” June demanded.

“Look at her,” Chase said, pointing. “Completely fine. Code’s not in for pain, considering how many bugs are still in the alpha version, and this is a practice zone. No damage for friendly fire.”

Shaking her head to clear it, Lin took off toward Chase at a dead run. But she didn’t attack foolishly. Instead, she pulled up, kept her balance, and launched into a kung fu routine that Reggie would have sworn was right out of a Hollywood stunt reel.

Lin punched. Chase leaned out of the path of the fist. Lin dropped down and swept for Chase’s legs. He hopped. She came up with a straight kick. Chase caught her foot and swept the other from beneath her. When she got up and lashed out with her wooden sword, Chase simply… vanished.

The four of them looked to one another in puzzlement. “Where’d he go?” Reggie asked.

“Up here,” Chase called out. They looked up, and he was perched atop a nearby wall like a gargoyle. “You may all be level 1, but I have an admin account for playtesting. I have the dragon skin perk. You all could literally pound on me all day with those noob swords and I wouldn’t take damage.”

“That’s it,” Lin said. “I don’t need the gloat fest. You wanna come back and play on level ground, I’ll be in Armored Souls.”

June’s shoulders rose and fell in a sigh, setting off a lot more jiggling than Armored Souls included. “Yeah. Me too. Tell your lead developer that he’s got a lot of fixing to do before I even consider coming back here.”

The two women vanished in quick succession after tapping their fingers at unseen UI selections.

Chase turned apologetically to Reggie and Frank. “I really had nothing to do with the costuming. You two wanna bum around a little and try the place out? There aren’t many missions in yet, but climbing around rooftops and murdering people is still pretty fun.”

Frank scratched at his avatar’s beard through his mask. “Thanks, but I’ll pass. These pajamas are silly, and I aim to catch the Tillerson / Ajambe fight on TV.” He disappeared shortly afterward.

Reggie clapped Chase on the shoulder. “I’ll give it a try, but just because Armored Souls is getting a little stale.”

A sly look came over Chase’s features, grin clear even without being able to see his mouth. “Cool. And afterward, I’ve got an idea you might like for how to spruce up Armored Souls a bit for everyone.”

Chase leaped atop a wall and pulled Reggie up after him. The world beyond the lordly estate was sparse and low-res, but it was still a fun time keeping up with the master ninja. They crept through alleyways and climbed in people’s windows. It was more an obstacle course at this point, but it was certainly a change of pace.

Reggie just couldn’t picture himself getting immersed in a game like this. Not like he’d fallen for Armored Souls.

The whole time he followed Chase around the anime-inspired Japanese city, he was wondering what Chase had in mind to put a fresh shine on an old juggernaut.

Chapter Four

Logging back into Armored Souls was a return to high-res, low-speed sanity. Reggie was no longer a coiled spring ready to leap a wall in one bound or run up the side of a building. Silent Shuriken may have been raw, but the exhilaration of the super-powered feats of acrobatics held a certain appeal.

Frank, June, and Lin were in the lounge of the platoon headquarters with a boxing match on the television. Only Frank seemed to be paying it much attention.

“You want to tell them?” Reggie asked Chase quietly.

June overheard. “Oh, you two are back. Got your fill of ogling ninja booty for one night?”

Chase cast Reggie a weary glance that said it all. They weren’t looking to hear from the junior assistant asset integrity intern for Silent Shuriken just then.

“I’ve got an announcement,” Reggie said, holding up his arms.

“Can it,” Frank snapped without looking. “Wait for a break between rounds.”

It wasn’t the climactic moment Reggie had been hoping for, but he waited for the bell to sound ending round 8 of the boxing match. Like one of Pavlov’s dogs, Frank turned to look as soon as the ringing sounded.

“Now that you’re all here,” Reggie said.

Frank tapped his wrist impatiently. “Minute and a half’s burning. Round 9 and I’m gone.”

Reggie didn’t have time for a long-winded speech. It was more important to get the idea out there, to plant the seeds and wait for the sprouts to grow later.

“I want to start a faction of our own,” he blurted.

“A what now?” Frank asked with a frown.

Lin scowled. “Are you nuts?”

June crossed her arms. “Do you even realize how much work that is?”

“Who better?” Chase cut in. “Reggie’s got so much time on his hands, he’s ready to turn this place into a home and garden club.”

“There are only five of us,” Lin pointed out. “What good’s being a faction when we’re still just a single platoon?”

Reggie shrugged. “Who says we have to stay small? Plus, once we’re officially a faction, we can keep some of these backwater planets we’re pillaging for scraps and XP.”

He could see the looks exchanged among his platoon mates. There was avarice in those eyes. They wanted to see whether everyone else was thinking the same thing: could they pull it off? It was one thing living mission to mission, taking picks off the public boards, and doing mercenary work. They’d even gone completely freelance and designed their own raids a few times. This could give them a steady income source if someone was willing to do the work to manage it all.

“You willing to step up and handle all that?” June asked. “I mean, this is a game, after all. Running a whole faction is a lot like work.”

“That’s been my problem,” Reggie said, looking over to Chase, who’d been the one to point it out to him. “I don’t have a job to go back to in the real world. Frank’s done his time. He’s earned a retirement. But I’m too young to be lying in a hospital bed, comatose and playing a video game. Or if I am, at least I ought to put in the effort to maximize the time I spend here. Chase is right. I was decorating our little parcel of the galaxy when there is still a ton of unclaimed space out there.”

Lin raised a hand and waggled it for attention. “Um. Hello? Quarter million credits just for the license. We could each buy a backup juggernaut for that.”

“And do what with them?” Chase asked. “Run without insurance for the adrenaline rush? Slum around the easy missions? Our rides are each worth over a quarter mil by now. Easy. We can still trick them out on the side, keep specialty backups for scouting or defensive missions, shit like that, but we don’t have a lot more to spend on our main juggernauts.”

“Tune. Tweak. Try,” Frank said. “I don’t mind puttering in the garage. The crafting isn’t half so boring as the kiddies make it out to be. Spoiled buggers probably never had to work on a carbureted engine on the side of a dusty road halfway from LA to Vegas. Puts a different perspective on tedium. Had to hitchhike a hundred miles just to pick up a piston ring and hitch a hundred back to install it. Took me a day and a half, on account of the—”

“Are you in or out?” Lin demanded. “Because if we’re not all in this, I’m not in it either.”

June turned to Lin with her head tilted. “Wait. You sounded like you didn’t want to form a faction.”

Lin flopped her head back onto the arm of the couch. “Ugh. I don’t want to run a faction, be an officer in a faction, or especially not be a recruiter for a faction. But I’ll chip in if it means Reggie does all the work.”

“Wait,” Reggie said. “I didn’t say I had to be the leader. I’m all for making this process democratic.”

“And no one else wants the job,” Lin replied.

Chase shrugged. “I’d love to, honestly, but with Silent Shuriken eating up my daylight hours, I’ll only be logged in at night. Reggie can work his ass off at this in ways I only wish I could.”

“Join the army and get yourself shot all to hell,” Frank suggested gruffly.

Reggie noticed that in the background, round 9 of the boxing match was well underway, but Frank hadn’t bailed on them.

“Let’s make this official,” June said. “Everyone who’s willing to chip in 50,000 credits and put Reggie in charge, say ‘aye.’”

“Aye,” the four of them said in unison.

Reggie was touched. He felt a warm flutter in his heart. It reminded him of a desolate birthday out in the desert, when his tank crew had kept a bottle of scotch hidden for him as a surprise. Sitting there, watching a desert sunset from the engine deck of his Abrams, drinking with his three closest friends had been one of his best memories.

“Aye,” Reggie echoed quietly.

“Any idea what we should name ourselves?” June asked.

Reggie nodded. He’d thought it up the instant Chase had suggested the faction idea. “Yeah. The Wounded Legion.”

Chapter Five

Reggie felt the eyes of his new followers fixed on him as his finger hovered in front of a UI button hanging in midair labeled “Create Faction.” There was a price tag of 250,000 credits, and the other four founding members had already transferred 50,000 each.

“Just get on with it,” Frank griped, stealing the moment and reminding Reggie that this wasn’t a mortgage or enlistment paperwork.

“I’ll reimburse you guys once we get our income straightened out,” Reggie promised.

“Just do it,” Lin said. “I want to start designing us a logo, and I can’t access the faction interface until you press that damn button.”

Reggie tapped the point in space. Due to Armored Souls being its own entity with its own laws of physics, he felt a cold, smooth surface when his finger touched. Then, the button vanished.

[Faction Created - Wounded Legion]

[Faction Leader Updated - King]

Reggie’s clothes changed to a generic military uniform, like a tin can dictator stripped of all his unearned medals. Everything was charcoal gray except for black boots, a black belt, and a pair of yellow-stitched epaulets that wouldn’t pass for gold even squinting.

“Hey, I thought we were going to be The Wounded Legion,” Frank said. “Doesn’t roll off the tongue without the the.”

“Game doesn’t like leading articles,” Chase said. “It makes alphabetizing easier, and you don’t get multiple factions like Wounded Legion, The Wounded Legion, A Wounded Legion.”

Reggie opened the main faction menu and invited his four platoon mates. Each of them accepted immediately, tapping the air at buttons only they could see.

[Faction Member Joined - Chase]

[Faction Member Joined - Doughboy]

[Faction Member Joined - June]

[Faction Member Joined - Dragonlady]

Reggie took a deep breath and surveyed his new team. “Welcome aboard.”

“We definitely need uniforms or something,” Lin said, studying her gray outfit.

“We all look like airmen,” Frank grumbled. “Not even pilots, just run-of-the-mill wheel chock jockeys.”

Reggie smirked. “We can get new unis but don’t badmouth the Air Force around me. I’m a fan of close air support.”

Frank snorted. “Back in my day, that meant ducking and hoping the bastards could aim the napalm.”

“You are so fucking old,” Chase said, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Forget the outfits,” June said, taking custody of the television remote and switching to a tactical map instead of the entertainment options. “The galaxy is ours for the taking.”

“Aside from the other twelve hundred factions out there, you mean,” Chase said offhandedly.

“By plan or by accident, Reggie bought this rough little rock on the edge of nowhere,” June said. “We’re out among the dregs of independent colonies and outlaw hideouts. The big factions are all clustered around the galactic core, slugging it out over planets with megacorp headquarters and populations in the billions. This far out, most of it’s unowned. The smaller factions haven’t come close to mopping it all up yet.”

The Wounded Legion headquarters popped up on the map with the press of a button. Reggie hardly considered their location except for calculating travel times to their various mission. But they sure were half past nowhere.

“So, big guy,” Chase said, clapping Reggie on the back. “Where’s our first conquest?”

Reggie stared at the map. It was all so overwhelming. Armored Souls’ galaxy contained half a million star systems. Their base was a tiny blip, a single point in a vast universe no matter how far he zoomed in. June left him with the remote and some time to consider the limitless options.

“So… any suggestions on where we should start?” he asked after half an hour of zooming and scrolling.

Chase was only too happy to oblige. “First thing a new faction needs is resources. Credits are great, but long term, we’re going to want to produce at least some of our own supplies. Last thing you want is to get on the bad side of someone who’s a major supplier of shit you need. Lot of the big boys run a single juggernaut manufacturer for all their pilots. Take Omnus for instance. Their pilots all drive Gottpanzer chassis because they control the Gottpanzer headquarters. No one can cut them off from replacement components or new juggernauts.”

Reggie scratched the back of his neck. “So, we should look for a juggernaut supplier? Like a small one or something?”

Chase cuffed him upside the head. “And rain half the factions down on us? First off, we’d get fragged the instant our drop ship touched down. Second, we’d never hold it. No, we want to start small. Take something like a mining colony, and get some ore to sell. Make ourselves members of the community by being a resource extractor.”

Frank grunted. “Knew a guy once. Coal miner out of Battleship, West Virginia. Name like that and he ended up wearing out boots on the front lines. Anyway, fella had lungs like a leather bellows. Said if you didn’t, you couldn’t breathe the air near the mines. He’d walk right behind diesel trucks, exhaust right in his face; never seemed to bother him. Why I remember a time—”

“How far is the nearest mining outpost?” Reggie asked before Frank reminisced them all the way back to the Civil War.

Lin took custody of the remote and ran a quick search. A short listing of planets came up, sorted by proximity. Each had mineral deposits and infrastructure in place to process them. None was more than a ten-minute ride in a drop ship.

[Cooley IV - Hematite 12,000T/Day]

[Krale - Magnetite 8,000T/Day - Sphalterite 6,000T/Day]

[Obion III - Tetrahedrite 32,000T/Day]

[Schet IX - Gold 0.5T/Day - Cassiterite 3,000T/Day]

[Ajebanni VI - Aluminum 35,000T/Day]

“Just based on outputs, I’d vote for Schet,” Chase said after a brief perusal. “It’s low volume, but gold is worth a ton more than those other minerals. Though tetrahedrite breaks down into copper, which is used in a lot of low-voltage conductors.”

“What’s cassiterite?” Frank asked with a suspicious squint.

“Tin ore,” Chase informed them. Reggie was just as glad it had been Frank to ask since he was no geologist either. “Not worth a hell of a lot, but it’s something. The gold’s not used as currency anywhere in this game—not like Silent Shuriken—but it’s more valuable in microelectronics and advanced medicine.”

Lin blew a rude noise. “Who cares about medicine? We die; we respawn.”

“Civilians,” Chase said. “It’s an economic thing. Doesn’t matter to us player characters, but the NPCs need it.”

“So… Schet?” Reggie asked around, looking from one Wounded Legionnaire to the next.

There were no objections.

“All right. Let’s scrounge up intel on Schet IX and plan a raid.”

Chase cleared his throat. “One last detail.”

“What?” Lin asked, exasperated.

“We need manpower. Just the preliminary defensive rating tells me we’re as likely to wipe taking this place out as we are capturing it.”

Reggie scowled. It was happening already. “We need more men.”

“Or women,” June added.

“I can advertise on tomorrow’s stream,” Lin said. “I’m playing Jog Fit. Should be getting plenty of eyeballs.”

A hollow pit settled in where a non-digital version of Reggie would have had a stomach. Floodgates were opening, and he had to be ready to stand against the current as new recruits poured in.

Frank was apparently thinking along those same lines. “Not sure I like the sound of that. Bringing in fellas on account of they wanted to watch some jiggly young thing bounce around on camera? There’s a reason they don’t park army recruiters outside the girly bars. Low character. Even if you catch a few good ones in the mix, it’s a bad bet.”

“I’ll post to the general recruitment forums,” June said. “We’ll see which yields better candidates.”

Reggie nodded, trying to maintain an air of command even as he felt out of control already.

Chapter Six

Reggie walked the line of new recruits who’d responded to June and Lin’s calls to action. Boot camp seemed like a million years ago when he’d been on the other side of the grim, angry gentleman assigned to turn raw civilians into soldiers.

These, at least, were already pilots in Armored Souls. They stood at something akin to attention without complaint. For the time being, they played along with Reggie’s pageantry.

“Welcome to Wounded Legion,” Reggie said, projecting his voice as if he were addressing a hundred troops and not five. “Our mandate is simple: we are set to expand our influence, ensure the safety and security of our territory, and prosper both individually and as a faction. Working together, we will out-plan, out-prepare, and out-fight enemies that may appear stronger than us. We will defeat them by being the best-prepared faction in Armored Souls. Now, let’s get to know you a little.”

First in line was “Nordbrook, Gunner 5.” He was the owner and operator of a Vulture medium juggernaut and was fresh out of a starter faction. “Hey. I’m Tim. Been playing a couple weeks. Before Armored Souls I mostly played war sims. Back in meatspace, I’ve got two kids and a wife who’s sleeping next to me playing Tango Dash.”

Reggie gave a curt nod, accepting the introduction. “Nice to have you along. You prefer Tim or Nordbrook?”

“Either one’s fine,” Tim replied.

Next was “Harper, Scout 9.” He straightened up as Reggie stopped in front of him. “Tommy Harper. Played Armored Souls since beta, but my ex had me off with her playing Adventureland: Jungle Explorer every night for three months solid. Soon as we broke up, I came back, did a little merc work. Been waiting for the right faction to come along.”

Reggie looked over at Chase, who shrugged apologetically. Last thing he needed was to lose Chase to Silent Shuriken the way Harper had gone off after his girlfriend into a campy jungle explorer game.

The young woman who stood beside Harper was short, with straight black hair and a jutting jaw that blared defiance. Her name badge read “Hime, Pilot 8.” She didn’t wait for Reggie to stop. “I’m Hime. Don’t see why I should tell any real-world info. Has no bearing on the game. If that’s a problem, then—”

“It’s not,” Reggie assured her. Already, though, the suspicious, confrontational attitude grated on him. If he’d been a drill sergeant, he’d never have put up with it. But this wasn’t a real army, and he couldn’t afford to ruffle feathers on day one.

“Then fine. I left Purple Moose because of a leadership shakeup and inappropriate behavior by one of the officers. I catch a whiff of that around here, I’m out, and I’m filing a complaint with the admins.”

“You have any trouble here, you tell me,” Reggie said. “I’ll handle anything that comes up. Chase can be a little raw, but he’s only got hands for Lin.”

“Hey,” Chase and Lin protested in unison.

Hime gave a small nod of acknowledgment before Reggie moved on.

The last two were “Ellie, Commando 11” and “Rich, Gunner 4.” They were a brother and sister who kept in touch through the game. Ellie was, obviously, the more experienced of the two, but Rich seemed like a good guy. Kept his commentary brief when he introduced himself. That was enough for the time being.

“All right everyone, here’s your first mission,” Reggie announced. “There is a mining colony on Schet IX. We’re adding it to our holdings.”

Ellie held up a hand. “We’re in the only other holding, right?”

Reggie pursed his lips. He was trying to make it seem like a professional organization, but having the recruits point out that they were basically starting from a concrete slab and building a skyscraper wasn’t helping. “Yes. We’re right at the beginning of our expansion phase. You five will be forming Bravo Platoon. You will be recon and flanking support. Detailed tactical briefings are being uploaded to your juggernauts. Study them in transit. Anyone have any questions?”

Harper cleared his throat. “Do we get paid?”

“Mission details are also in the briefing,” Reggie said. Hopefully, without a chance to read through them ahead of time, none of the recruits would back out on the mission. Between the license fee and the cost of upgrading the hangar for space to store five more juggernauts, Reggie was tapped out on funds. “Including the mission rewards.”

He promised himself he’d make it up to them.

“All right then,” Reggie said, clapping his hands sharply. “Let’s ride!”

Chapter Seven

[Primary Objective: Force the Surrender of Schet IX to Wounded Legion]

Reggie smirked as the notification popped up in his display the instant Vortex set foot on the planet.

[Secondary Objective: Leave All Mining Assets Intact]

He had made sure of that one. Of the 2,000Cr reward for completing the mission, half was tied up in ensuring the viability of the planet as an income generator. Wounded Legion didn’t have the credit reserves to be making major repairs up front.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 0/???]

That was almost pro forma. There was no point in leaving such an objective out. The Player-Generated Mission system didn’t require every objective to come with credit rewards, and players couldn’t set XP payouts whatsoever. All marking the enemy force for elimination did was give a running count of their progress to everyone involved in the mission.

The tactical map came up, and Reggie watched as the rest of the legion came off the drop ship behind him. Quickly, June’s Artemis and Harper’s Chipmunk pulled ahead, veering north and east respectively to flank the mining outpost.

“Alpha Platoon, proceed to Foxtrot-five-five. Keep behind the hills, and don’t let them make visual contact,” Reggie radioed out to his troops. “Bravo Platoon, follow the river to Juliet-nine-zero and keep the ravine wall between you and the outpost on the way.”

“Question,” Nordbrook replied, voice scratchy over the speakers in the cockpit of Vortex. “What’s Juliet?”

“NATO alphabet,” Reggie explained, wondering if he might need some training missions and a basic operational overview for these civvies. “None of the words are easily mistaken for another, and you go by the first letter.”

“Got it,” Nordbrook replied. “J-90.”

“I’ll be in position in a sec,” Harper radioed. So chipper. So quick in that Chipmunk. It was 5kph below max speed for its designation, but Harper had it laden with advanced sensors and an active camo system that made up for the loss of a little speed. It was still far and away the fastest juggernaut in the legion.

“Copy that, Harper,” Reggie replied, trying to set a good example. His Alpha Platoon had slipped into a lot of loose habits with all the missions they’d run together and the easy camaraderie of hammering down missions like nails sticking out of a board.

Artemis reached F-55 and held position. “All clear,” June reported. “Stealth insertion and forward position achieved. We’ve seriously got to consider upgrading this place’s defenses once it’s ours.”

Chase giggled over the radio. “Why you think we’re getting it? If this place was defended like a core world, we’d never have made planetfall.”

“Tabled for later discussion,” Reggie said. He checked his own progress to the rendezvous. Just another couple hundred meters and he’d be in position as well. “But point taken. We can’t afford to be sloppy like this.”

TARGET DATA RECEIVED

Reggie blinked at the message to make sure it wasn’t his eyes playing tricks on him. But there they were, three new red blips on his mini-map. There was even a tactical readout on them.

“Three Titans inbound, Bravo Platoon,” Reggie warned. But of course, they already knew. It was Harper in his Chipmunk who had relayed the data, and he was plugged into his own platoon’s tactical computers. “Fall back and—”

“They haven’t spotted me,” Harper said quickly. “We’re still hidden.”

“They must have spotted something,” June said. “They’re headed straight for your position.”

“Coincidence,” Harper replied. “Probably a patrol route. If I don’t move, they won’t spot me until they’re within 500m.”

“But by then you won’t have time to get to cover,” Chase pointed out.

Frank’s reply came over a channel reserved just for Alpha Platoon. “Aw, let the kid learn the hard way. No greenhorn gamer is going to believe his fancy-pants trickeration’s no good until he gets his jimmies kicked up his keester.”

But Reggie was already busily updating his mental strategy. No plan survived contact with the enemy. That was the first thing a commander hammered into green troops the second they got exposed to live fire. You can’t win if you can’t react. Whoever reacted quickest, surest, and most decisively when their plan came apart would be the victor.

“Harper, hold position as long as possible,” Reggie ordered. “The rest of Bravo Platoon, continue north to Golf-nine-one following the river. Don’t come out of the water until I give the order. Alpha Platoon, wait until those Titans reach India-seven-six, then open fire, taking them in the side armor.”

A chorus of acknowledgments flowed in as everyone confirmed receipt of the orders. How well they followed through remained to be seen.

Sunlight glinted off the cockpit window of Vortex as Reggie marked the time. The dun-colored hillscape rolled along, blocking direct view of their targets. Without missiles loaded, they wouldn’t be playing tricks with indirect fire to avoid damage. Instead, they were relying on the fact that a little repair work was cheaper in the long haul than missile reloads. For the first time in the past fifty missions, Reggie wondered if pure economics was the game to be playing just now.

F-76

G-75

H-76

I-76

“Bravo Platoon, fire and retreat,” Reggie ordered. He waited as the wireframe outlines of the Titans in his tactical display lit with damage markers. The 105-ton behemoths shrugged off the damage. It appeared as if Ellie might have put in a couple good shots with her Gargoyle, but even that was mostly cosmetic damage.

“Alpha Platoon, fire at will.”

This was the action. For long, grinding weeks, Reggie and his main platoon had been tinkering and tuning, getting their juggernauts just the way everyone liked them. They had leveled up, loaded out, and locked in for these moments.

Yulong was in position first, unleashing hell with her Anti-Matter Projector, scoring a critical hit that took an arm clean off one of the Titans.

Reggie scrambled up the rise to see over it in Vortex. But seeing wasn’t going to be enough. This was a pincer movement, not a sniping engagement for anyone besides Lin and, to a lesser degree, June.

Diablo and Gremlin were already charging in. Chase would stop short once he reached an optimal firing range, but Frank was a melee specialist. If he reached those Titans before they decided who was their biggest threat, they’d find out the hard way that it wasn’t Bravo Platoon.

“General, where you want us?” Harper asked. A quick glance showed that he’d taken a shot from one of the Titans but had successfully withdrawn with the rest of Bravo Platoon upriver.

Reggie was no general, but this wasn’t the time to clarify the chain of command. He was still at the top, whatever anyone decided to call him. “Keep close. Once those Titans engage us, hit their exposed backs.”

“But how will we—?” Hime began to ask.

“I’ll give the order,” Reggie snapped. Of course, with their limited sensor packages, Bravo Platoon wouldn’t be able to tell which way the Titans were facing without direct line of sight. Harper, their eyes and ears, was hunkering down along with the rest of them.

With as short a weapons range as anyone in Alpha Platoon, Reggie finally reached firing range at 900m out from his first target.

[Titan[2] - 44% To Hit]

This was Reggie’s lot in life. His Command Radius skill boosted everyone else’s Gunnery and Piloting, but he was on his own and at a disadvantage for having spent his skill points and perks to help his troops.

Vortex launched a volley from its Mk2 Plasma Launchers. Both shots missed the mark.

Beside him, Diablo pulled up and steadied to fire. Four Plasma Launchers opened up, and all four shots connected with the exposed torso where Lin’s Yulong had blasted away an arm. With no thermal insulation at the gaping joint, Titan[2] quickly went into over-temperature shock.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 1/???]

“Nice shootin’, kid,” Frank observed as he barreled onward.

Titans [1] and [3] rotated their upper torsos to bring weapons to bear on Alpha Platoon. It was clear from the sluggish reactions that these were drone pilots, not even the run-of-the-mill shitty AI that Armored Souls used for most of their non-player-piloted juggernauts.

“Bravo Platoon, target Titan[1] and fire at will,” Reggie ordered. “Alpha Platoon, focus fire on Titan[1]’s legs.”

“But what about Titan[3]?” Hime asked.

Reggie didn’t answer. Bravo Platoon would be in visual range any second. She’d see for herself.

Frank raised both Gremlin’s swords overhead and spread wide. Titan[3] peppered him with beam cannon fire but only scorched away some of the Tiger-class heavy juggernaut’s armor before Frank closed the gap. Two huge slabs of steel descended, more giant girders than cutting blades, with just enough of an edge to focus the impact.

Green, full hit-point zones on the Titan went instantly to red as the swords came down on the juggernaut’s head. Frank didn’t slow down, either, plowing into his opponent torso first. Flat-footed and swiveled at the waist, the Titan was in no position to keep itself upright. Gremlin fell atop it.

Reggie had to force himself to pay attention to Titan[1] instead of watching the tactical display to enjoy Frank’s work. It wasn’t an unheard of style of juggernaut combat, but it had few proponents. Melee combat came with higher repair bills and a lot of time spent under withering fire chasing down juggernauts that didn’t want to engage. Frank had some secondary weaponry for “annoying little buggers” but preferred finding big, slow targets to work over.

Truth be told, his favorite seemed to be catching light juggernauts unawares and swatting them airborne like golf balls, but tackling equal-sized opponents held its own satisfaction.

[Titan[1] - 63% To Hit]

This time Reggie’s plasma blasts connected, adding to the barrage that sandwiched the Titan from both sides. The tactical wireframe spasmed colors as both platoons burned it down.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 2/???]

On the ground, there was still a wrestling match going on. Titan[3] lacked leverage but still had power in its massive fists. But Frank practiced his piloting even while flopping on the ground. He leaned out of the way of a left, then a right-fisted blow by the downed Titan, then drew back his sword for a fatal blow to the thing’s skull.

[Secondary Objective Complete: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 3/3]

“That was it?” Lin asked. “I thought this was supposed to be tough.”

Though they weren’t on visual communication, Reggie glared at Chase’s Diablo on the platoon tactical panel. He was thinking along the same lines as Lin.

“Theoretically, three Titans and a default base defense system should have been more than a match for us,” Chase insisted. “At least just the five of us. We didn’t have the intel to know the base was defenseless and the juggernauts were running sub-human AI.”

“Um, does this mean we won?” Ellie asked.

“Not yet,” Reggie said. He set a course for the outpost itself. There was a formality to things like this. An NPC leader wouldn’t just hand over the keys to his colony the second his last defender died. There was always the chance that the invaders were after something besides a change in ownership. They needed to see the juggernauts parked on their doorstep and receive the official demand for surrender.

It was a victory procession that Reggie led. On the way into the strip mining operation, he took quick stock of his conquest. It was nothing spectacular, mostly gray steel ore smelting plants and mobile mining drills, plus a few ground-based haulers. A small village of modern pre-fab domes was his destination.

Just as he drove Vortex within 100m of the village, an option popped up in the air in front of his face.

[Demand Surrender / Demand Tribute]

“Oh, I’ll be having the surrender today, waiter,” Reggie said with the radio off. “I’ll take that with a side of gold ore and an appetizer of a daily income boost for Wounded Legion.”

He tapped the surrender button.

[Wounded Legion - New Holding - Schet IX]

Over the speakers, the whole faction cheered.

[Primary Objective Complete: Force the Surrender of Schet IX to Wounded Legion]

[Secondary Objective Complete: Leave All Mining Assets Intact]

[Mission Successful - 6,100 XP - 2,000Cr]

“Was that a typo?” Harper asked. “Two grand for a faction conquest?”

“Kinda… stingy,” Hime agreed. “This going to be standard operating?”

“Hey, we have faction income now,” Reggie said. “I’ll make it up to you guys.”

Chapter Eight

The site of Wounded Legion’s next mission was hauntingly beautiful. The planet had no atmosphere to speak of, and the nighttime view of its two giant moons lit the sky with blue and red orbs like palette-swapped twins overhead. The landscape was bathed the purple light of those reflected moons, following the craggy terrain and casting ravines into shadow.

Ahead, in the distance, a shining medical facility gleamed like a beacon. Perched halfway up a mountainside, it was a factory for pharmaceuticals that were of no inherent value to players, but which commanded high prices in the NPC commodities markets. In the end, that was all that mattered to Reggie’s faction.

Money.

Without money, no faction could grow. Income from Schet IX was already trickling in, and Reggie had discovered that owning an ore refinery provided a bonus to salvage rates for completely destroyed juggernauts if they could ship the crap there. It was only a 10 percent bonus, but every little bit helped, and it was more than worth the cost of stopping by with the drop ship on the way home from missions.

“No juggernauts on radar,” June reported.

“All right, everyone,” Reggie said. “Keep on your toes. Don’t get complacent.”

He punched the command to launch the player-generated mission.

[Primary Objective: Force the Surrender of Alcon Prime to Wounded Legion]

[Secondary Objective: Capture Scientists 0/???]

Reggie felt a little squeamish about that secondary objective. Chase kept reminding him that they were NPCs; they didn’t have feelings or a sense of self. But they were trapped in the game, same as him. In the end, how different was Reggie from them?

Possibly sensing his trepidation, ASHARI popped up from the console, her translucent blue face inscrutable as always. “Remind yourself that this is a game,” she said, voice echoing electronically. “You kill NPC pilots regularly without a hint of emotion. The miners on Schet IX already work for you; these scientists will be no different.”

Checking first that the radio was switched off, Reggie took a deep breath. “Yeah, but we’re going to have to go in there and look them in the eye. Intel says there’s a hot hole. We go in there, they don’t surrender. They’ll wait for rescue.”

“Reggie, you coming?” Chase radioed.

Squeezing shut his eyes and balling his fists, Reggie knew he couldn’t just sit there. He nudged Vortex into gear and headed to the back of the pack of juggernauts marching toward the pharmaceutical complex.

“This is a game,” ASHARI reminded him again. “You are playing a role, a role your teammates find you well suited for.”

“But this is the sort of thing I fought against in the army,” Reggie protested. “Warlords, rogue states, militias. It was one thing being a private contractor and looking the other way a little. It’s like I’m stepping into a pair of boots, and I’ve got the left and right mixed up.”

“If you’d like, I can speak to Dr. Zimmerman on your behalf,” ASHARI said. “You don’t use me for tactical advice. I ought to find some way to be of service.”

“Keeping me grounded is enough,” Reggie said. “Besides, leaning on you for odds calculations seems like an exploit. I know you were planted for me to find. I didn’t earn you. I refuse to be a charity case.”

“As you wish, Sgt. King,” ASHARI said. “But for the time being, just remind yourself that they are, in essence, digitized actors playing a part in a grand play for your benefit. Treating them as anything else is not honoring their purpose.”

Reggie scowled at the holographic AI. “Fine.” With that, he hit the command to dismiss ASHARI. Let her get all touchy feely with Doc Zimmerman. Reggie would power through this like he’d done everything else in his life.

The invasion force under the Wounded Legion banner approached the pharmaceutical compound with an eerie lack of resistance. Reggie kept expecting that at any moment, artillery fire would rain down on them or a rigged section of the landscape would give way beneath them. Seriously, could these medical types have been any more oblivious to the need for security?

“Like walkin’ the dog,” Frank radioed to everyone. “Just a pleasant little stroll, waiting for the shit to happen.”

“Thanks for that image,” Hime replied dryly.

“Cut him some slack,” Nordbrook said. “I heard he was like a hundred fifty years old.”

Rich whistled. “Damn, old man. Did you know Roosevelt?”

Frank grunted. “Know him? I fought a war for him. Might’a voted for him once or twice. Can’t rightly recall. Used to carve our ballots on clay tablets and leave ‘em out in the sun to dry. Wasn’t neighborly to spy on someone else’s vote while it dried, but you had to keep an eye on your own in case some smart-ass punk decided to change it. Had whole parties sitting around while the clay—”

“Someone please shoot at us,” Chase shouted for the world to hear. Of course, on a planet without an atmosphere to carry the sound, he was mainly just hurting the ears of everyone in radio contact with Diablo.

Just then, an incoming transmission popped up on Reggie’s display. It was a holographic feed, and the image was of an older man with gray hair and a furrowed brow. “You are trespassing on Uvanica Biomedical property. We are sanctioned by Star League to conduct research on local radioisotopes with promising medicinal properties. Depart now, or we will summon a strike team to eliminate you.”

“Everyone get that?” Reggie said. “Find that transmitter before these idiots call for backup.”

“More like front-up,” Chase radioed back. “You’d think they’d call first, then warn us to get bent or get cratered.”

“Double-time,” Reggie said. “No point staying massed. Faster units, make use of that speed.”

“Aye aye, sir!” Harper said.

“I’ll do what I can,” June radioed out. It was a hefty drop-off from Harper’s Chipmunk to Artemis, but June’s Phoenix-class medium was the next best thing they’d got.

Wounded Legion strung out from fastest to slowest juggernaut. Ellie fell behind the two lead juggernauts, followed by Chase’s Diablo. Reggie ended up in the back of the pack with Frank. Even Lin’s Yulong was faster, despite the Dragon being a heavy juggernaut.

Harper reached the transmitter tower before Reggie was even within long range of any of his weapons. Despite minimal weaponry, he opened fire.

Transmitter Tower: 79/80

Transmitter Tower: 78/80

Transmitter Tower: 77/80

A sinking feeling came over Reggie as he realized that even a simple structure without armor or concrete reinforcement was going to take too long for one light juggernaut to knock out.

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.”

This 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.

The flash of an explosion shone through Reggie’s closed eyelids as Vortex shook.

Tengu[2] was marked as the focus target. It was already within 500m, and Reggie had been too busy herding cats to fire.

ASHARI popped up. “Sgt. King, I just want to remind you—”

Reggie’s fist slammed down on the button to dismiss the AI. “Go away!”

[Tengu[2] - 66% To Hit]

Reggie opened fire.

Left Arm (Tengu[2]): 23/30

Torso (Tengu[2]): 18/90

Nice of Reggie to hit the undamaged arm when everyone else had been pounding away at the torso. At least one of his shots had found the mark. Lin must have spotted how close it was to going down because as soon as she took out the leg of Tengu[10], she squeezed off a shot that took out the rest of Tengu[2]’s torso armor and went right to the engine.

Tengu[2] exploded in a quick puff of smoke that dissipated almost immediately in the vacuum.

[Primary Objective: Destroy All Enemy Juggernauts 2/10]

But the invading Tengus hadn’t been idle. Their constant stream of missiles had been supplemented by arm-mounted DF Ballistic Cannon-240s. Nothing fancy about them and horrible for ammo costs, they were essentially old-fashioned naval guns mounted on a futuristic chassis.

And the Bravo Platoon juggernauts weren’t taking it well.

Hime went down first. Her Wyvern wasn’t so poorly armored, but to get her shots in, she was playing loose with keeping behind the limited cover the medical factory provided.

“Quit it!” she shouted her last words before respawn. “Target someone—”

Nordbrook was simply there one second, gone the next, as four of the remaining Tengus focused a missile barrage on him that Chase’s counter-laser fire couldn’t thin out in time to save him.

Also, out in the open field, Tengu[5] managed to lever itself up and into position to launch a volley that took out Harper and Rich before they could reach the drop ships.

Tengu[8] exploded as the remaining Wounded Legion burned it down.

[Primary Objective: Destroy All Enemy Juggernauts 3/10]

“We’re losing the kiddies,” Frank said. “No more time for patty-cake.” Gremlin lurched out of cover. It was nearly unscathed since targeting a heavily armored melee juggernaut while squishier, more deadly snipers were active hadn’t been a priority for the surprisingly effective Tengu AI. Frank was about to make them pay for that decision.

Gremlin charged out of cover. It was still over 400m of open ground, but Frank didn’t seem to care about such a paltry distance without cover.

“No one else try that!” Reggie ordered. But of his remaining command, only Ellie was an unknown quantity. Chase, Lin, and June knew better than to try their luck against a pack of five heavy juggernauts in melee combat.

Ellie’s snort of derision was comforting in that regard. “Not a chance.”

“Four’s mine,” Frank said, bearing down on Tengu[4] with fury, swords crossed in front of him like a battering ram.

“Everyone avoid targeting Tengu[4],” Reggie ordered.

Lin dropped Tengu[9].

“Go, Kneecapper!” Chase cheered her on.

“That better not become a nickname,” Lin warned.

Wary of even downed targets at this range, Reggie took aim at Tengu[9] as it flopped on the ground, trying to stand on one leg.

[Tengu[9] - 89% To Hit]

Reggie snarled at having an 11 percent chance to miss a downed target but squeezed off a pair of shots that both connected.

Chase joined in, and the two of them fried Tengu[9] before it could find a way to rejoin the fight.

[Primary Objective: Destroy All Enemy Juggernauts 4/10]

Frank made short work of Tengu[4], bowling the heavy juggernaut to the ground with his Tiger’s 20-ton edge in mass. Overpowering it was quick work. The Tengu’s Taifu Nishi reactor was built by Juki-sen for efficiency, not brute force. It was no match for the Gremlin’s Grossemacht 1450 reactor for raw power. Gottpanzer liked their juggernauts overbuilt, which made them ideal brawlers.

[Primary Objective: Destroy All Enemy Juggernauts 5/10]

Just as Reggie was scanning for his next target, June lit Tengu[1] for focus fire. Before anyone else could bring weapons to bear on it, Yulong’s Anti-Matter Projector scored a critical hit, taking the head clean off it.

[Primary Objective: Destroy All Enemy Juggernauts 6/10]

The last two remaining juggernauts were quick work for Frank’s swords and the rest of the division’s energy weapons.

[Primary Objective: Destroy All Enemy Juggernauts 8/10]

“I’ll head down and take out the last two,” Chase volunteered. “I know how to watch out for their firing arcs.”

“Affirmative, Diablo,” Reggie said, taking a slow breath to calm his heightened nerves. He surveyed the six remaining juggernauts. All of them had taken widespread damage to their entire vehicles. But if there was one flaw in massed missile volleys—aside from laser-marksmen like Chase shooting them down—it was the lack of focused fire on particular modules.

Out in the barren wasteland, Chase caught up with the first of the downed, thrashing Tengus crawling toward their drop ship.

[Primary Objective: Destroy All Enemy Juggernauts 9/10]

A minute later, he dropped the last one.

[Primary Objective Complete: Destroy All Enemy Juggernauts 10/10]

[Mission Complete: 8,500 XP]

There was no cash payout for this one. Reggie hadn’t had time to set one up while under fire.

“Start dragging salvage to the drop ship,” Reggie ordered. “Let’s stop by and melt these party crashers down on the way home.”

“Are all our missions going to be like this?” Ellie asked cautiously.

Reggie found himself grinning despite the harrowing battle they’d just come through. “I hope so. That was the most fun I’ve had in weeks.”

Chapter Ten

Reggie materialized in a spacious penthouse apartment overlooking a city that supposedly resembled modern Seattle. But the view beyond the windows was just that: an image. There was no Seattle, the same as there was no Alcon Prime and no Schet IX. While this wasn’t Armored Souls, Reggie’s apartment was still a digitized construct on a Valhalla West server somewhere.

He tried not to dwell on that.

Once in a while, Reggie needed a break from unreality. While the apartment was fake, it behaved more or less like Earth. There were no missions here, no stats that he could call up. If he wanted to know if he was hungry, he listened to the biological signals from his stomach instead of checking a health sub-menu.

The fridge was stocked with beer and condiments. Reggie browsed the selection and found a Bud Adams—apparently Valhalla West didn’t have license to use real brands even in a private digital space. But when he cracked it open, the beer was cold and tasted better than the stuff in Armored Souls. In the game’s case, it was an attempt to make the brew taste futuristic and science fictiony. Reggie preferred his beer to taste like a bar down the street.

His cell phone lay on the end table beside the couch. Picking it up, Reggie scanned through the listing of takeout restaurants, determined to give all of them at least a try. There were other services programmed into the phone as well, but Reggie had sworn not to give in and dial any of the escort businesses. Too many damn programmers trying to mess with his sex life was pissing Reggie off.

“Hello, Madhouse Pizza. Can I take your order?” a perky voice asked when Reggie called his pick of the evening.

“One of everything on your menu. Large. Plus a bottle of every soda you stock.”

“Will that be all?” the perky voice followed up, completely nonplussed by Reggie’s bizarre order.

“Yeah. I think ‘everything’ about covers it,” he replied deadpan.

“That’ll be $559.65, and it’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Reggie ended the call.

He sighed.

Presumably, the wait was just to make the world feel a little more real. But there were so many loose edges of the illusion to pick at. Collapsing onto the couch, Reggie flipped on the television to watch whatever the hell sports were playing back in the real world. It was about the closest Reggie ever got to feeling alive.

There was a chime at the door just as he was choosing between college and pro football games—all on recording—he wanted to watch.

Reggie checked his phone. The call to Madhouse Pizza had only been four minutes ago, and when a pizza place in this digital no-man’s-land said fifteen minutes for delivery, you could count it on a stopwatch.

Muting the audio of an Ohio State / Michigan broadcast, Reggie approached the door cautiously. It wouldn’t surprise him to find that Chase or someone at Valhalla West had sent Reggie someone to keep him company.

When he opened the door, however, it was Dr. Zimmerman standing outside. He was dressed in civilian clothes, neither medical nor military, just a blazer and slacks, with a white button-down shirt and no tie.

“Hi, Reggie,” Zimmerman said amiably. “Mind if I come in?”

Reggie minded. He left Armored Souls for the peace and quiet, for the normalcy—however strained and painted on—and for the chance to unwind. But he stepped aside and allowed the doctor in. “Sure. Make yourself at home. I just ordered pizza.”

It flickered in the back of Reggie’s mind that Zimmerman might already have known that. Valhalla West CEO Ken Bradley himself had assured Reggie that the company wasn’t spying on him in his private time, but everything he felt, saw, tasted, and smelled was generated by their servers. Even if individual people might not have been paying attention or snooping, the company knew.

“I don’t plan to stay long,” Zimmerman said. “I know how much you value your privacy. But ASHARI was worried about you and asked me to stop in.”

“I’ve got football, beer, and pizza on the way,” Reggie said. “Right now, I haven’t got a worry in the world.”

“That’s good to hear,” Zimmerman said with that forced, phony smile of his. Did the guy even realize how transparent he was? He had the bedside manner of an AI. “How is your newest foray into command?”

Reggie shrugged. “Same road. Bigger bus. If it starts getting too noisy for me, I’ll delegate.”

Zimmerman nodded. “Good. Good. Have you been noticing any problems with concentration, mental fatigue, difficulties with memory?”

Circling the room and retrieving his beer, Reggie kept a wary eye on the doctor. “No. Should I be? What’s wrong with me back in meatspace?”

“We don’t generally approve of that term,” Zimmerman said. “And your condition in the physical world has never been good. We’ve been up front with you about that. While you’ve got free reign in Armored Souls, I still have a duty to keep an eye on your mental health.”

With his beer in one hand, Reggie tapped at his temple with the other. “I’m all here upstairs. ASHARI’s just programmed to worry like a nanny. Now, you want to grab a beer and watch a ballgame, or we done here?”

Zimmerman’s smile twitched. “Much as I’d like to, my duties have expanded. I have other patients to check in with. Glad you’re feeling better.”

Once Zimmerman was gone and the volume was back at full blast on the television, Reggie tried to lose himself in the action on the field. But somewhere in the back of his mind, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Dr. Zimmerman knew more than he was letting on about Reggie back in the real world.

Chapter Eleven

It was a surreal sensation, waking up in Armored Souls after going to sleep in his faux-Seattle apartment. There was a setting Reggie could have changed to switch his auto-login to waking hours, but that just seemed weirder somehow. Let his body think that Seattle Lite was a dream, or let it decide that Armored Souls was the false reality. Either was preferable to admitting to himself that neither was real.

Stretching out kinks that his digitized back didn’t have, Reggie made his way out to the common areas of the base.

The rec room was quiet. It was just Frank bothering billiard balls at the pool table without even the television on for background sound.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” Frank greeted him with a grunt.

“Everyone else at their day jobs?” Reggie asked. He hadn’t even looked at the time. Seattle Lite’s starry night sky had been his last view before retiring to bed.

Frank shrugged. “Probably. Not sure what the new kids do with their days.”

“And you?” Reggie asked as he wandered over to inspect the game Frank had set up. The old-timer was playing by nine-ball rules solo. “You due for porridge and Jell-O soon, or you hanging around for a while?”

Frank glared at Reggie but said nothing and returned to lining up a shot on the six-ball.

“What?” Reggie asked. “You joke about the horrible food and the shape of the nurses every chance you get. Sore subject all of a sudden?”

“Haven’t woken up in three days,” Frank grumbled.

Reggie cringed. That didn’t sound good. “Have you tried?”

Frank slammed his cue down to the felt surface with a crack that made Reggie jump. “Of course, I’ve tried! ‘Error, body unavailable.’ What the bloody hell that means, I don’t know. The helper monkeys just give me the runaround when I ask.”

“Helper monkeys?” Reggie echoed in bewilderment. Were there pets at Frank’s hospice?

“The computer eggheads who run this whole place,” Frank clarified, snatching up his cue and waving it dangerously to indicate everything around them. “I’m trying to forget all the horrible things that might be happening to me back on Earth, so either grab a cue and play or shut the hell up about it.”

Reggie jerked his head in the direction of the room’s exit. “Want to head over and kill some time in Silent Shuriken? Change of scenery might—”

“Tried that,” Frank snapped. “Only so much running around in pajamas a man my age oughta be doing. Listening to flute music and skulking in bushes waiting to stab some fellow in a silk dress ain’t my cup o’ joe. So pick up a cue or leave me in peace.”

Reggie opted to shoot pool.

But between shots, he kept sneaking a peek at Wounded Legion status screens.

[Schet IX - Gold 0.5T/Day - Cassiterite 3,000T/Day]

[Alcon Prime - Azaspan 1,200 Doses/Day]

[Wounded Legion - Converted Income - 53,500Cr/Day]

Fifty-three thousand credits just for sitting on their asses. Sure, overhead expenses were bound to go up, but this was the beginning of the rise of Wounded Legion.

Frank won a game of nine-ball and began racking up for another go. Reggie stole a glance at the faction roster.

[King - Commander L15 - Vortex - Daisy2]

[June - Scout L17 - Artemis]

[Chase - Gunner L16 - Diablo - Firebat - Tinder]

[Dogface - Guard L15 - Gremlin - Studebaker]

[Dragonlady - Gunner L18 - Yulong - Kuailong]

[Nordbrook - Gunner L5 - Sharkeater]

[Harper - Scout L9 - Alvin]

[Hime - Pilot L8 - WindDancer]

[Ellomancer - Commando L11 - Gothic]

[RichyRich - Gunner L4]

Reggie blinked and looked at the list again. Why wasn’t Rich listed with a juggernaut? He’d made sure that all the new recruits had owned their own before signing on. Though the name escaped him—and Reggie promised himself to learn the names of the unit’s new juggernauts—he was sure that Rich had been piloting a Chi-Ha.

“You gonna break, or you just gonna stand there gaping?” Frank asked.

Reggie shook himself. “Sorry. Just checking over the unit roster. Rich, the one in the Chi-Ha who got deleted trying to steal a drop ship, doesn’t have a juggernaut.”

“Yeah,” Frank said, scratching his chin. “The sister said something about him gambling without insurance. She seemed to think it served him right.”

Of course. Just his luck. Reggie had been on the fence about “RichyRich” from the beginning, but his sister was higher level and conducted herself like a pro. He was the baggage. Now he’d be dragging along a guy who might have leveled twice in that battle if he’d lived, except now he was back to square one of level four and would be piloting a rental.

A rental…

“Shit,” Reggie swore.

“It’s a break. No fair cussing until you’re actually losing.”

“No. Not that,” Reggie said. “I just realized I’m the one who needs to supply rental juggernauts.”

Frank growled in the back of his throat. “Give him a three-wheeled jeep, and tell him to mind his insurance next time.”

“Is that some old-timey vehicle I’ve never heard of?” Reggie asked.

Frank picked up a beer from the bar and smiled as he took a swig. “Nope. Just a plain old jeep, missing a wheel. It’d serve the kid right.”

“I guess I could let him have Daisy2 for a couple runs,” Reggie mused.

“That ratty little toy?” Frank scoffed. “Good enough for him.”

Reggie sighed. “I’ll at least make him pay for insurance on it before I let him take it out of the hangar.”

“At least you’re not calling it a ‘she’ anymore.”

Reggie paused. No. He hadn’t. Daisy was his ex-wife’s name, and he’d often slipped into the habit of thinking of the juggernauts named after her as female.

Maybe he was leaving some baggage behind him after all.

Chapter Twelve

The fancy strategy rooms in Hollywood movies didn’t exist in the real-world military, at least not in modern times. Generals didn’t play with miniature figurines of enemy troops, sliding them around the map with a croupier stick to demonstrate maneuvers. Nor had things progressed to the point where there were huge tables that served as flat-touch screens, updating with real-time info from active engagements.

But Reggie had done those one better. Until recently, the atlas of Star League space had mattered as much as a subway map to a country farmhand. With the advent of Wounded Legion’s expansion, the galactic survey had turned into a shopping list.

So Reggie had splurged.

It had tapped out the legion’s funds, but they now had a full tactical and strategy room. The map that came with it was holographic and took up most of the room. It projected out of a table in the center of the circular chamber and blossomed out over the heads of the planners gathered around it.

“We need a grand strategy,” June announced to the spectators gathered. Everyone from Wounded Legion was there, gawking up at the Almajara Galaxy, fictional home of the Star League and everyone in it—including them. The only one not present was Frank, who claimed he had better things to do than watch a television program that didn’t move.

“What’s a grand strategy?” Nordbrook asked. “We getting noble titles or something?”

Reggie stepped in to explain. “Grand strategy is beyond just tactics and battlefields. It’s about the kind of victory we want to pursue and the means to achieve it. Do we want to make alliances and join a league of like-minded factions? Do we want to take a small amount of territory and turn it into an unassailable fortress? Do we want to work behind the scenes to fracture large factions and pick at their bones? Do we want to overthrow the entire Star League?”

“Um, no?” Chase suggested. “How about we don’t try to fight the admin faction?”

“I’m just giving examples,” Reggie continued. “My vision for Wounded Legion is continuous, steady expansion. Right now, we’re in a fairly backwater region of space. Eventually, we’re going to rock someone’s boat and either take a target they were interested in or just end up attacking them directly.”

“Well, it’s a PvP game,” Ellie said, leaning against the projector and gazing up hungrily at the galaxy. “Can’t make an omelet without stomping down a few renegade eggs.”

“My goal is for you to become partners in our conquests and expansion,” Reggie said. “I’m emailing you a short list of planets and non-planetary holdings. I want you each to study them and come up with a plan to take over at least one. I don’t care how you plan it; just try to make the best plan you can with the resources we have available. You’re free to use this room to help visualize your strategies.”

“Can we use asymmetric warfare?” Chase asked with a gleam in his eye.

Reggie sighed. “Yes, but no breaking the game rules. Spying, feints, covert ops… all fine. I don’t want any messages from the admins informing me that I’ve got troops who’ve been banned for hacking, out-of-game threats, or exploits.”

Chase headed for the door immediately, pausing only long enough to call back to his faction mates. “I’m putting up 1,000 credits that it’s my plan we run first. Who’s in?”

A thousand credits was fantasy football money, nothing to cause faction strife over. Reggie let the intra-faction gambling pass as everyone else but June—and Frank, who wasn’t there—agreed to chip in.

When it was just June and Reggie left, she slipped an arm around his waist. “That went well.”

Reggie let out a long breath. “Yeah. Surprisingly well. I was worried I might not be cut out for officer work. Commanding a mission’s a lot different from leading a whole army. Especially when you have to decide where to aim it.”

“You could use to blow off a little steam,” June suggested, pressing in closer against Reggie’s side.

She wasn’t pretending to be subtle, just tactful. How could Reggie explain just how weird he found the idea of sex in a digital body? Even the few times he’d given in, he found himself wondering if his body, back in the real world somewhere, was reacting as well. The disconnect of mind and body came to the fore at times like that, when all he wanted was to lose himself in the world of Armored Souls.

Reggie nodded as if she’d made a startling revelation. “Right. I should go round up Frank and see if he’s up for some nine-ball. Unless you wanted to play, that is,” he added hastily.

June slid away and headed for the door. “No. You and Frank have fun.”

For a moment, Reggie stood there, wondering whether he ought to do something noble and romantic. He just didn’t have it in him. Armored Souls had all the functionality; Reggie just didn’t want to turn his only refuge from reality into a soap opera. If only he could just tell her that and stop her occasional hints that he ought to make it more than that, everything would be perfect.

Before long, Reggie was browsing star systems like a kid with a birthday gift card, just wondering what he should get with it. The whole galaxy was there for the taking. Sure, something like 40 percent of it was owned by either player or NPC factions, but that left a whole lot of in between to conquer before he stepped on his first set of toes.

Then he remembered Frank. He truly was interested in what the old bugger was up to in the machine shop. On the way there, Reggie took stock of his base’s facilities, grinning like a fool.

[Hangar - 10 Bays]

[Landing Zone - 2 Pads]

[Communal Barracks - 5 Beds]

[Individual Quarters - 5]

[Rec Room - Standard]

[Map Room - Standard]

[Armory - Basic]

[Machine Shop - Basic]

He found Frank hard at work on some futuristic piece of fabricating equipment, sparks flying and steel shrieking as it was forced into new shapes by drills and grinding wheels.

“Frank!” Reggie shouted over the din. “FRANK!”

The grinding died away, and Frank flipped up a welder’s mask. “Hey, Reggie-my-boy! How’s the wife and kids?”

“What’re you making?”

Frank stepped aside and swept a hand like a maître d’ showing a guest to his table. “Whaddaya think?”

It was a sword. A huge sword. A sword big enough for a heavy juggernaut to wield.

“I thought the crafting system in this game sucked,” was all he could think to say. The weapon was remarkably large seen up close, wider than Reggie’s torso and as thick as his leg.

Frank grunted. “Says who? Them yappy dogs that talk about the game instead of playing it? Too much work. Too few options,” he mimicked what could only have been Frank’s image of a forum troll, holding up his hand effeminately and waggling them. “Bah! Namby pamby roller-chair pilots don’t know how to roll up their sleeves and put in an honest day’s work. I’m hand crafting my own sword like the ancient Iroquois used to, back in the day. King Tut himself carried an Iroquois sword into battle at the Nile. Mine’s gonna be big enough to swat aside whole gaggles of Spartan spearmen—not that I expect to find any, mind you. Spartans went extinct some time last Ice Age, along with them little squirrel fellas.”

Reggie chose to ignore most of the babbling and focus on the sword under construction. “What’s gonna be the difference between this one and Gremlin’s old sword?”

Frank snickered. “My luck? Probably nothing. Might even make it worse. But I’ll keep at it. If it comes out like a duck-billed boomerang, I’ll just melt it down and start over. Practice makes perfect.”

“Well, best of luck with that. Hey. I came to see if you were interested in some pool.”

“Nine-ball?” Frank asked hopefully.

“Unless you’d rather take an assignment picking the legion’s next conquest…”

Frank scratched at his chin. “Nah. I’ll leave the generaling to you. I’m just here to smash things with a sword.”

Chapter Thirteen

[Primary Objective: Sabotage Hydroelectric Dam]

[Secondary Objective: Evacuate Before Hostile Forces Arrive]

Getting back to regular missions was a shift of gears for Reggie and Wounded Legion. They didn’t have a new objective yet for faction growth, and Reggie didn’t want to hold them all hostage until someone had a solid plan. Instead, they were here on Minos Urasa, doing the dirty work that The Cumulus Imperium didn’t want to take on themselves.

“Just to be clear,” Reggie radioed as he led the division out of the drop ship and into the moon’s forest. “We are intentionally failing the secondary objective. We take out the dam, and we dig in. This mission is popcorn without the butter and salt if we just blast and run. We need money and salvage, not what Cumulus Imperium is offering for this job.”

“You mean someone’s going to see me in this thing?” Rich asked. “I feel like a total tool.”

“First off, that’s my juggernaut you’re borrowing,” Reggie radioed back.

“Yup,” Chase added quickly. “And he looks like a tool every time he pilots it, so suck it up and pay for insurance from now on.”

“Yes, sir,” Rich replied glumly. “But couldn’t I have changed the colors, at least?”

Lin chuckled. “Aw, cyber tough guy can’t take looking like a flower?”

Daisy2 had the same paint scheme as the original. He’d bought it on impulse, missing simple scouting missions, and couldn’t bring himself to sell it off again.

“2,500m to the dam,” June reported, cutting through the chatter.

Mini gunfire sounded off to Reggie’s left. “Who’s doing that?” But he already knew. There were only two juggernauts in the division carrying the fast-firing, low-caliber ballistic weapons, and Rich was off to the right in the formation.

“Thought I saw something in the trees,” Harper replied. It was a sorry excuse. His scanners were good enough that unless this moon had ten-meter-tall stealth velociraptors, there was nothing that could both hide and pose a threat to them on this moon.

A gurgle in Reggie’s stomach signaled his worry that there might be something the intel reports missed. Armored Souls loved the whole “unreliable intel” shtick.

For all his misgivings and trigger-happy troops, Wounded Legion arrived at the hydroelectric dam without incident. It was at the edge of a lake where it poured into a ravine. The division stopped at the ridgeline with firing lines down over the lip.

“Fire at will,” Reggie ordered.

Hydroelectric Dam: 893/900

Hydroelectric Dam: 890/900

Hydroelectric Dam: 889/900

Hydroelectric Dam: 871/900

With the whole faction raining destruction, the reinforced concrete structure chipped and cracked. Spouts of water gushed from high-penetration shots from Lin’s Anti-Matter Projector.

At the edge of the dam, Frank walked Gremlin up and tried out his new swords.

Hydroelectric Dam: 850/900

Hydroelectric Dam: 829/900

“Holy crap, dude,” Nordbrook exclaimed. “Nice swords!”

Frank’s chuckle came over the radio like wheezy static. “Came out nice on the fifth try. One measly point of damage more than a regular sword. Almost makes a fella wish he’d spent his time fishing. Not me, of course, but some other fella who prefers burnt trout over busting out a case of chewing gum and kicking some ass.”

“When you going to make some gear for the rest of us?” Harper asked. “A minigun with a little oomph might make keeping this little rodent of mine a while longer.”

“Couldn’t say,” Frank replied as everyone continued pummeling the dam. “Swords are pretty damned simple. Lots of tubes and fidgety little bits in a gun.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Rich said. “Alpha Platoon’s going to get everything first. We’ll get dregs once Frank’s bored of manufacturing cool toys for his bros.”

“There a problem?” Reggie asked, stepping in lest Frank become the doormat of this conversation. Much as Frank could take care of his own business, Rich was piloting Daisy2, and Reggie didn’t want to see his spare juggernaut launched into the ravine like a golf ball if Frank took something personal.

“Yeah. Your loaner jug’s a pile of shit. House Karrosi used to hand out Badgers. I didn’t half mind having to use one for a few missions.”

Reggie snorted into his mic. “Well, maybe House Karrosi didn’t do enough to convince you to keep up on insurance. It’s the smart play. If I catch you piloting commando again, I’ll have Chase break down the economics for you.”

“Sure,” Chase said between plasma blasts at the dam. “I’ve got a whole spreadsheet worked out, and the break-even points are startlingly low compared to… hey. You’re using me as punishment. Low blow.”

Hydroelectric Dam: 721/900

Hydroelectric Dam: 703/900

Hydroelectric Dam: 696/900

Hydroelectric Dam: 688/900

The dam was holding up like a champ, but it had no means to defend or repair itself. Unless they were slow about it, the response force wouldn’t get here until long after the dam was flooded rubble.

It wasn’t long before the cracks and holes added up. The dam ran out of hit points, and the lake groaned and toppled what remained of the structure. Even for a video game, the effect was awe-inspiring as a kajillion gallons of water roared down the ravine, flooding the banks of the trickling river that normally flowed at the bottom.

[Primary Objective Complete: Sabotage Hydroelectric Dam]

“All in a day’s work,” Ellie said. “How long until the targets show up for practice?”

“Any minute now,” June replied. “I’m showing a drop ship on scanners. It looks like they’re landing at…” She paused, waiting for confirmation from her computer. “K-144.”

Artemis and Harper’s Chipmunk, Alvin, spread out and covered the likely approaches.

Reggie and the rest of Wounded Legion waited.

TARGET DATA RECEIVED

[Secondary Objective FAILED: Evacuate Before Hostile Forces Arrive]

June cackled over the radio.

“What?” Reggie asked immediately.

Harper snorted but composed himself in time to answer before she could. “It’s eight juggernauts. All Pixies.”

“Hey, RichyRichy,” Reggie called out jovially. “Want to kick a little Pixie derriere? Get out some of those frustrations on a worthy target?”

Stuck in Reggie’s Pixie, Rich could only take the verbal pounding in stride. “Yeah. Fuck Pixies. I wanna beat those little bitches until fairy dust blots out the sun.”

Reggie saw the moving blips on his mini-map. He tapped one and linked it to Rich’s targeting computer.

TARGET DATA SHARED

“All right, everyone. Fire at will. No special plan here. But leave Pixie[6] for Rich. Got it?”

As predicted, the mission was a bloodbath. The Pixies inflicted a few scratches, and the rest of the faction watched as Rich dueled the last remaining Pixie to the death after the others had been torn, scorched, and blasted to bits.

[Mission Successful - 900 XP - 2,200Cr]

Luckily, with an ore refinery available, the scrap more than tripled their take. The Cumulus Imperium might have commissioned this raid, but they were only subsidizing the salvage job Reggie arranged.

Chapter Fourteen

Weeks passed. Wounded Legion collected income from Schet IX and Alcon Prime. They ran smaller raids for resources instead of conquest, building up their strength and purchasing defenses for their little collection of planets before they moved onto bigger and better endeavors.

They continued recruiting.

The headquarters now sported a hangar with 15 bays for juggernaut pilots. That meant Lin and June had to bring in candidates. Reggie didn’t even bother talking to the slop bucket of applicants until the two of them had winnowed the list down to a manageable few.

Five had made it through Reggie’s screening.

They had all come from other factions, some due to disillusionment, others because of factions disbanding. The five of them stood in a row beneath the looming juggernauts in the hangar. If he was going to make an army of them, Reggie needed them to understand the game world the way he saw it.

“There are three types of factions out there,” Reggie said, pacing down the line with his hands clasped behind his back. “There are the fat, complacent giants that sit in the core systems like slugs, wallowing in their power. There are mercenary factions that serve those gluttons. Then there are the small, hungry factions looking to carve out a share of the galaxy and eventually challenge those giants. That’s what Wounded Legion is. In addition to this base, we currently hold two systems, Schet IX and Alcon Prime. Tomorrow, we will add another planet to our growing empire.”

As he walked in front of them, none of the new recruits managed to remain at military attention. They turned their heads to track his movements. They shifted on their feet. In the digital realm, those feet weren’t getting sore standing there, so the only excuse for their fidgeting was boredom or inattention.

Reggie needed to cut this short. He was already losing his grip on the recruits with his windy speech.

“All right. Before we head out for a little fun and practice, anyone got any questions?”

“This base have a name?” Reese asked. He was a Level 9 Gunner and one of the more promising of the new recruits. His juggernaut was a Demon named Heckfire. Just hearing that made Reggie check his game setting to make sure curse censoring hadn’t been re-enabled.

“No,” Reggie said. “We don’t have a name for it.”

Standing on the sidelines, watching the orientation, Chase raised a hand. “Why not? I haven’t said anything, but I’ve wondered about that.”

Reggie sighed through his nose. “Fine. I’ll come up with a name for it.”

“How about Tardis?” suggested Thatchet, the lowest level of the newbies, a Level 5 Scout.

“How about no?’” Lin shot from beside Chase. “Nothing lame or from some TV show or movie.”

Chase pointed index fingers at Reggie like guns. “I’ve got it. Elysium. That’s where the ancient Greek heroes went when—”

“No,” June cut in quickly. As soon as Chase went quiet, she relaxed. “No. I think we can do better than that. Just don’t rush Reggie.”

Reggie nodded a thanks for stalling the barrage of suggestions. “Any other questions?”

ZRod crossed his arms and looked down the line at his fellow newcomers, then over at the old guard of Wounded Legion. “Yeah. When we gonna shoot shit? I didn’t come for pep talks. I came to fight.”

Reggie knew that this wasn’t going to be a gradual introduction. The gamers he’d met in Armored Souls were here to blow off steam and pump some adrenaline through their sleeping minds, not build a life and career. He was ready with a mission pre-selected for a night out.

“Saddle up, cowboys and cowgirls,” Reggie announced. “There’s a shooting gallery on Pathex III tonight.”

Since there was no harm in spoiling the surprise, Reggie even pushed the mission announcement early to everyone.

[Primary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 0/225]

All around the hangar, eyes went wide—all except for June and Chase’s. They’d helped him pick this one.

“You guys like congested battlefields and old, retrofitted juggernauts? Well, tonight’s your lucky night.”

Chapter Fifteen

The following night, the soldiers of Wounded Legion logged back in, spirits high. The prior night’s entertainment had been both a lark and a gauge by which to measure his new team. They’d salvaged more than they could cram aboard the drop ship, earned enough XP for Rich and Thatchet to level up, and gotten to know one another.

Charlie Platoon was under ZRod’s command, consisting of him, Compton, Thatchet, Reese, and a quirky little guy who called himself Mapple—which he insisted could either be pronounced like the syrup-bearing tree or the popular pie-filling fruit.

If the shooting-range mission on Pathex III had been a litmus test, Charlie Platoon had passed. They’d earned the right to come along for this next mission.

[Primary Objective: Force the Surrender of Turrim Auream Starport to Wounded Legion]

Reggie’s pulse quickened as the drop ship docked at the starport. This was a new kind of mission for him. There would be no open skies, no wide plains, not even a cityscape. And this was also the first time that a mission was starting with a lie.

A traffic controller contacted them as the station latched on. “Wounded Legion vessel, you are clear to disembark. Enjoy your stay on Turrim Auream.”

Situated on the X-112A space lane, Turrim Auream was a trading hub. It boasted a refueling station, a bazaar, and night-life options ranging from the low-class to the debauched. It produced nothing of its own, merely converting its existence and location into a lucrative business as a place to meet, trade, and relax. Thus far, it seemed to cater mainly to NPC factions.

Today, they were going to meet some players.

“Thanks, traffic control,” Reggie replied, patching the drop ship’s radio through the cockpit of Vortex. The station’s scanners weren’t rated for hull penetration, so they had no way to tell that there were 15 juggernauts waiting to storm in. “We hope to make ourselves feel right at home.”

Reese called over the division frequency. “Maybe don’t tell them we’re planning something?”

Chase giggled. “The AI’s too stupid to pick up on that shit.”

Reggie cast a knowing glance at the projector where ASHARI was known to pop up but kept quiet. Most of the Armored Souls’ AIs were idiots. Not all.

The loading ramp of the drop ship yawned open. The freight bay outside peered in, lit by dated-looking fluorescent lighting.

“All right. You all have your assignments,” Reggie radioed out. “We have no idea who or what is on the other ships docked here. There are 12 docking arms to secure, plus the station’s security hub and manager’s office. About 80 percent of this place is juggernaut-friendly. Ellie and June will be on foot to take out the infantry support at the security hub—just rent-a-cops, really. I’ll negotiate the manager’s surrender.”

There were no questions for once. It was amazing.

“Move out!”

Wounded Legion juggernauts charged out of the drop ship in a jumble. Smaller, lighter units squirmed their way to the front and darted off to the more distant parts of the station. Only Frank hung back. As the slowest, heaviest juggernaut, he was assigned rear guard duty, watching over the drop ship. Dock 7 was his.

Reggie made his way to the station core. This wasn’t a job he was looking forward to, but it was his responsibility. Ellie and June could reach the security hub faster than him, and Ellie in particular would be invaluable in neutralizing the station’s police force. She had been right: not every mission was suited to jamming as many gunners in a platoon as possible and winning a fire fight. This mission wouldn’t have been possible without someone with good shooting skills leading the charge internally.

“Got a ship trying to disengage,” Chase radioed from Dock 6. “Fire or let ‘em run?”

“Fire,” Reggie said. “We’ll pay for the repairs. Cut power to the docking clamps, and keep them here.”

“Roger that,” Chase replied.

On the mini-map, Reggie saw Wounded Legion take up positions at each docking arm as the closer and faster juggernauts arrived at their assigned posts.

“Trouble!” Thatchet shouted. “One of the ships is unloading troops to fight back!”

Reggie didn’t see anything pop up. There were no juggernauts to be seen on board Turrim Auream. “I’m not seeing any.”

“Foot soldiers,” Thatchet clarified.

“Burn ‘em,” Chase cut in. “You’ve got a Flame Jet on that Imp. Use it!”

“But…”

Reggie snarled. This was no time for squeamishness over NPCs. The struggle was easier to distance himself from when they weren’t there in front of him. “Confirmed. Open fire with fire.”

On the division display, Thatchet’s Imp, Yoink, took torso damage and a few chips out of its head armor but nothing that even left the green range. Paying attention to Thatchet’s heat indicator, he saw the gauges rise.

There was no time to monitor the side battles in detail. Reggie had arrived at the station core. There was no more room for a juggernaut to maneuver.

Opening the front of Vortex like a clamshell, Reggie climbed out and down the leg. Once he reached ground level, there was an automated double-door of polished steel barring his way onto the elevator. A touchscreen control console blinked a silent, foreboding red.

SECURITY LOCKDOWN

SECURITY LOCKDOWN

SECURITY LOCKDOWN

Reggie took off a glove and pressed his hand to the panel.

SECURITY LOCKDOWN

He hadn’t expected much different. Switching radio frequencies to the temporary channel Strike Team 1, he called over to Ellie and June. “Status on the security hub? I’m here at the elevator. Can’t go up with this lockdown active.”

There was silence.

“Ellie? June? Report,” Reggie ordered.

He was growing antsy. All his detailed tactical displays, even up in Vortex, were useless. Drawing the new Zeephus L-220 blaster pistol he’d picked up for this mission, Reggie put his back to the wall beside the elevator and watched for trouble.

A gaggle of station personnel darted out of a side passage. They didn’t look like anyone who wanted to get in Reggie’s way, but he fired a few shots over their heads to chase them back into cover.

“June!” Reggie snapped. “Report in!”

“Sorry,” June came back over the radio a few seconds later, short of breath. “More resistance than we anticipated. All clear now. Ellie and I are working on—” there was the sound of blaster fire and a shower of spark, “disabling the security lockout.”

Reggie kept watch on the red, blinking panel.

SECURITY LOCKDOWN

SECURITY LOCKDOWN

With June’s mic open, he could make out the distinct sounds of two different weapons carving up the security hub.

SECURITY LOCKDOWN

The panel stopped blinking. An up and down arrow bracketed the number 4.

Reggie tapped the up arrow, and the number counted down, accompanied by a whirring from the elevator shaft.

3

2

1

The doors opened. Reggie kept clear, Zeephus L-220 at the ready. When he glanced into the elevator car, blaster leveled, he confirmed it was empty.

“I’m in,” he reported to Strike Team 1. There was a similar panel on the inside, except with a larger selection of numbers to choose from. The highest number was 15. Reggie tapped it, and the elevator doors slid shut.

He switched to the division-wide frequency. “All pilots, report in.”

Lin was the first to respond. “Dock 11 tried to fight back. All clear now.”

ZRod’s report was similar. “Had some hung-ho fuckers at Dock 3 climb onto my jug and try to cut in with hand tools. Vented the docking arm to vacuum and they ran off.”

The rest of the division gave the all-clear.

Reggie’s elevator arrived at floor 15. He took cover out of sight of the room beyond when the doors opened. Blaster fire scorched the back of the elevator car instantly.

“Give it up,” Reggie called out. “The station is under Wounded Legion control. Your security forces are out of the picture. Automated systems are offline. All docking arms are secured.”

“I won’t go down without a fight,” a gruff female voice called out defiantly.

“You don’t have to go down at all,” Reggie shouted back. Luckily for him, the AI was that dense, because that came out sounding awful. “I still need an administrator for this station. You’ve got experience.”

“I won’t go down without a fight,” the station manager reiterated.

Reggie rolled his eyes. Sometimes the stubbornness built into certain NPCs strained belief. A live commander might have tried to lure him out with a false surrender, bargained for the safety of her staff, maybe even just surrendered without further fuss. But the idea that a corporate middle-woman would be so loyal to her employer as to give her life to hold onto the station another minute or two was baffling.

“Fine,” Reggie muttered beneath his breath. “Be that way.”

Reaching to his belt, Reggie unclipped a flash-bang grenade Ellie had recommended. It produced a 10-second stun effect that reduced mobility to 25 percent and induced blindness. He clicked the trigger button and lobbed it into the manager’s office.

The concussion shook the elevator.

Reggie rushed into the cloud of smoke the grenade had left in its aftermath, searching out the manager by the sound of her coughing. As soon as he made out her outline in the haze, the practical side of Reggie told him to fire. Managers were interchangeable, especially NPC managers.

Without time to think things through, Reggie reacted on instinct. Just navigating the room had eaten up half of his 10-second window of advantage. Before the grenade’s effect wore off, he dove and tackled the stumbling manager to the floor. With his superior weight, he pinned her down while he wrested the blaster from her grasp.

Still coughing, the manager struggled feebly as Reggie rolled her onto her stomach, twisted an arm behind her, and knelt on her lower back.

Then the smoke cleared, and the grenade’s effect dissipated as if by magic.

“Surrender,” Reggie ordered, reaching over and retrieving the woman’s blaster, pointing the weapon at her head. At this range, he could make out the details. She wasn’t quite middle-aged, with smooth skin and hair pulled back in a severe-looking bun. She wore a pair of computerized glasses and a figure-hugging business suit. There was nothing intimidating about her in this position. She looked scared.

Reggie knew that if she refused, he probably couldn’t squeeze the trigger.

“Surrender,” he bellowed, praying the AI wasn’t going all Bushido on him. How much loyalty could a corporate suit possibly have for a paycheck?

“Computer,” the manager said. “Relinquish command, authorization Kara Evers, Code Alpha One Sierra.”

Electronic chimes and computerized gurgles gave the impression that a whole lot of calculations were going on in the background of the machine’s core. Reggie worried that her order was some sort of concealed doomsday command like a self-destruct or venting the station’s atmosphere.

But after a moment’s processing, the computer prompted him. “Identify new commander.”

“King,” Reggie said. “Wounded Legion.”

[Primary Objective Complete: Force the Surrender of Turrim Auream Starport to Wounded Legion]

[Mission Successful - 10,100 XP - 12,500Cr]

Reggie let go of Kara Evers’s arm and took his knee off her back. She allowed him to help her to her feet, and once they were both standing, she regarded him impassively. “What would you like me to do?” she asked.

Blood rushed to Reggie’s ears at the innuendos the game kept dangling in front of him. Wasn’t it enough that he’d secured a solid income stream for his faction? Did the deposed manager have to hint that there were more rewards than credits and experience for keeping her alive?

“Get back to work,” he ordered. “Get this place cleaned up. Hire new security. Broadcast a general all-clear to the station visitors and personnel. And make a full report four times a day that integrates with the Wounded Legion faction base.”

“Yes, Mr. King,” Kara Evers replied.

Chapter Sixteen

Reggie performed a few warm-up exercises in his Seattle Lite apartment. Toe touches, side stretches, a brief stint of running in place. None of it did much for his digitized muscles, but it put him in the right frame of mind before accepting Chase’s request to meet him in Silent Shuriken.

Chase hadn’t bugged him about the game in weeks, but this time he promised that there were new features Reggie just had to see.

In the history of spy movies, there was a category for guys like Chase: non-spies. If there had been a clearer way to tell Reggie that he wanted to talk to him alone, in an environment Chase could control, Reggie couldn’t think what it might be. Even blurting out, “Hey, Reggie, I need to talk to you where all these new guys can’t hear us” might have at least been passed off as a joke.

With a sigh, Reggie called up a game menu.

[Apartment > Logout]

Reggie tapped the word.

[Really Logout? Y/N]

UNABLE TO LOG OUT; USER BODY NOT AVAILABLE

Disturbing as that message ought to have been, Reggie was getting used to it. Another menu popped up behind it.

[Relog options: Apartment - Armored Souls - Silent Shuriken - More Options]

One of these days, Reggie ought to create accounts in all the other games. If nothing else, seeing this screen wouldn’t make his life look so small and insignificant. At best, it might remind him to take a vacation now and then.

Reggie tapped Silent Shuriken and closed his eyes for the disorienting trip between game universes.

When he opened his eyes, Reggie’s clothes had altered. He was dressed in the all-purpose ninja jumpsuit his avatar had worn upon logging out. A courtyard surrounded him, serene and peaceful with a trickle of water from an unseen fountain gurgling nearby.

“Hey, Reg,” Chase said.

Reggie whirled at the voice just inches behind him. Chase was there in his costume regalia, looking more like a fighting game champion than a stealthy assassin. He let out the quick breath he’d sucked in.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that,” Reggie scolded.

Even with the lower half of his face hidden by a mask, Reggie could see the grin in Chase’s eyes. “Hey, with a Perception rating like yours, I’d have to play the tuba the whole way here for you to spot me. I have Passive Invisibility, Shadow Form, and Dance of Feathers.”

Reggie craned his head away. “Dance of Feathers? That some sort of strip club act?”

Chase chortled. “No. It’s silent running.” To demonstrate, Chase ran toward a nearby stonewall, continued up for three full running steps, and backflipped to land where he’d started. All without a whisper.

“Cool,” Reggie said. “But I don’t think that’s why you wanted to see me here.”

“It wasn’t, but I did want to show off a little,” Chase said. He looked over both shoulders as if he wasn’t an admin on this alpha server. “I’m worried that we might have a mole.”

Reggie crossed his arms and cocked an eyebrow. “A mole.”

“Don’t gimme that look,” Chase snapped. “I’m serious. This game trains you to look for stuff that’s based on real human psychology, and I’m getting pretty good at it. It’s one of the skills that’s not reflected in stats, so I have to actually work at it. And I have.”

Reggie took a long breath and started walking toward the noble house that he knew was adjacent to this garden. “So, lemme get this sorted out here. You’re learning ninja mind-reading tricks here and applying them to real live people in Armored Souls. Based on your Zen observations, you think we’ve recruited traitors. That about cover it?”

“I’ve been practicing while awake too,” Chase added. “I could tell when my supervisor was bullshitting about it being my turn on the rotation to debug outsourced code.”

“You sure it’s not just wishful thinking?”

Reggie felt a cool wind that cut through the thin fabric of his uniform. He shivered. There was an atmosphere of loneliness and paranoia that pervaded Silent Shuriken. Sure, it was probably great for the ambiance players these games looked for, but it wasn’t promising as far as objectively assessing motives in a more neutral world.

“Why would I wish for traitors?” Chase asked with a scowl. “I want Wounded Legion to kick ass. Infighting—especially without grounds—will only weaken us.”

“I was talking about your day job, but I guess the observation is valid. If you catch a mole, it looks good for you. You become more valuable. Maybe people come to you for advice instead of me or June.”

Chase shrugged. “I don’t care about that shit. I’m already your right-hand man, and we both know it. June’s a soldier by trade, I guess, so you two relate, plus the two of you can plug uglies when you get the itch. But I’m the one who knows the game mechanics best. Company rules prevent Valhalla West factions among employees, but I still bounce stuff around with other players at lunch and shit. I may not have access to the code for Plasma Launcher targeting degradation over various ranges, but I play foosball with the guy who does.”

Reggie thought for a moment. Chase hopped up onto the wall.

“I didn’t bring you here just to be a downer,” Chase said. “We’ve opened a new area. We should level you up a little and check out Ghost Forest. A real weapon and some gear that isn’t made of black gauze and you might see what’s cool about this game.”

Chase wove his hands through a series of martial arts poses and shadow formed around his fists. As Reggie stood watching, the higher-level ninja vanished from sight.

The air beside Reggie said, “Come on. Let’s have a little fun. Then, tomorrow, we can try to figure out if my mole is real.”

[Group Invite: Chase]

[Accept: Y/N?]

Reggie gave a curt nod, trying to keep within the game’s aesthetic.

Trailing wisps of shadow dotted the way as a translucent Chase, visible now to his group mate, sped off to the east.

Reggie followed, hoping that maybe the land of shadow and ninjas would provide insight into the shadowy side of Armored Souls as well.

Chapter Seventeen

Reggie had earned a Red Sash [+2 Intimidate] and a Talon Blade [+10% Assassinate Damage] before Chase finally gave up on showing him around the Ghost Forest zone. It was all too high level for Reggie, and he died three times, but death was cheap in Silent Shuriken. He got to be a ghost for a while until his body regenerated and was fit for inhabiting again. The process only took about thirty seconds, and the body formed at a spot just outside the forest.

Being back in Armored Souls, Reggie felt heavy, slow, and somehow more solid. The light-footed action of Silent Shuriken was all about the power of a single man on foot. It was a glorious and inaccurate portrayal of warfare better suited to the farcical and the satiric. He wondered how many in Silent Shuriken’s audience cared that they were caricaturing a culture they claimed to love.

When he entered the rec room, it was quiet. The lights blinked on automatically, sensing his presence. He was the only one.

“Maybe it’s time to recruit some new time zones,” he muttered. House Virgo had been operational around the clock, collecting players from all parts of Earth and jumbling them together in one faction. While he didn’t have demographics on his newer members, they all spoke with American accents.

Reggie found Frank in the machine shop, audible from two halls away thanks to the racket the machinery made. He thought better of disturbing Frank at his in-game hobby, especially as there were rumblings that he might level up his machining skill to the point where he could make ranged weapons.

Meandering into the War Room, Reggie brought up the galactic map and zoomed in on Wounded Legion territory. Their holdings were labeled in soft blue lettering that glowed, and the three-dimensional space that was deemed within their control shaded a little blob around those holdings.

[Base]

[Schet IX]

[Alcon Prime]

[Turrim Auream Starport]

Reggie scowled at the unadorned label for the Wounded Legion headquarters. He needed to call it something. Per game rules, faction homes were off-limits to player raids. This was their sanctuary, the one place in the galaxy where no one could touch them.

Then it hit him.

Reggie reached into the hologram, hoping the game worked consistently on stuff like this. He tapped the word “Base,” and a keypad appeared.

G-R-E-E-N Z-O-N-E, he tapped in carefully.

[Base Updated]

Reggie smiled at the revised list:

[Schet IX]

[Alcon Prime]

[Turrim Auream Starport]

[Green Zone]

The Green Zone had always represented safety to Reggie in a world where enemies and potential enemies could be anywhere. Anywhere else, that is. This was where he was allowed to feel safe, to let his guard down between missions, to perform the tasks of living as a human, not just a soldier.

And if anyone else didn’t like it, that was their business.

Reggie’s business was adding another planet or space station to Wounded Legion’s repertoire. Turrim Auream was a nice earner, better than either of their prior two conquests—though not by a lot over Schet IX. However, it came with a downside as well. Existing on a major interstellar shipping lane, it was easily accessible and out in the public eye, hanging a target on it for anyone with ambition.

Reggie studied the star chart and looked for likely approach vectors. There wasn’t terrain in space, but nebulae and spatial anomalies abounded to make up for the lack of mountains and bodies of water.

Finding that there was a star on the far side of Turrim Auream along that same shipping lane, Reggie tapped on the Cagamere system for more details.

[Cagamere I - Chthonian Planet - Population 0]

[Cagamere II - Protoplanet - Population 0]

[Cagamere III - Lava Planet - Population 0]

[Cagamere IV - Carbon Planet - Population 0]

[Cagamere V - Terrestrial Planet - Population 0]

[Cagamere VI - Gas Giant - Population 0]

[Cagamere VII - Ice Giant - Population 0]

“Well, that’s not friendly,” Reggie muttered. He tapped into each for details and discovered that the population number wasn’t merely an indication of intelligent, advanced life. As best he could tell, there wasn’t a single living thing in the star system.

There was only one candidate that might turn into a valuable asset.

“Congratulations, Cagamere V,” Reggie said to the blip of suspended photons representing a fictional planet in a digital universe. “At 50°C and with no breathable atmosphere, you’re still the most hospitable planet in your sorry-ass system.”

A plan came together. That fifty-degree figure only applied in the polar regions, but a pair of forward bases with listening posts—one at either pole—would give Cagamere V a good view of the surrounding cosmos. Build it up over time, and it would serve as an early warning system for Wounded Legion space, allowing the faction to backfill behind it without worrying about sneak attacks.

By the time the first members of the rest of the faction started logging in for the night, Reggie had come up with a series of player-generated missions to assign.

“Listen up,” Reggie called out, gathering everyone in the War Room. “We’re pitching underhand tonight. But that means you’re getting off the leash a little. I’ve purchased a second drop ship. You’re going to be splitting up by platoon and marking out sites for a pair of polar bases on Cagamere V.”

Reggie paused to bring up the tactical view of the planet, pre-marked with zones he wanted investigated.

Chase whistled. “You stayed up all day picking that garbage fire?”

Reggie zoomed the view out and took a few minutes to explain the tactical position that the Cagamere system provided, then went into detail on how awful the other planets in the system were.

“It doesn’t matter how bad the planet is,” Reggie said in conclusion. “What it comes down to is that we need a forward observation post if we want to keep what we’ve accumulated so far. I don’t want our first warning of an attack being someone on board Turrim Auream Starport. We already proved how easy it is to slip past the perimeter there. Tightening security without choking off commerce would cost a fortune and still wouldn’t be as effective as a listening post.”

Ellie looked at the planet appraisingly. “Could be worse. When do we head out?”

Reggie smiled. “You head out as soon as you’re ready. You’re taking command of Bravo Platoon and overall mission. ZRod, take Charlie Platoon. Ellie, you make the call on who surveys the northern versus southern polar regions. Got that?”

Ellie saluted. “Yes, sir!”

Reggie returned the salute. Being an officer—or general, or whatever he styled himself in Armored Souls—was going to take getting used to. “When you pick out a location, mark it, and I’ll direct construction from here. We’ll put up deep space radar posts, broadcast relays, landing pads, and a 2-jug hangar and barracks combo.”

“Not it,” Chase said, putting a finger to his nose.

Reggie looked at him cockeyed.

“What?” Chase said. “I don’t want to pull rotation manning some nowhere bunker.”

Reggie chuckled. “You won’t have to. I’m planning on rehiring some old NPCs I used to run with. This is the work they were cut out for.”

Chapter Eighteen

Mornings in Seattle Lite were a calm, contemplative quiet. How many people could boast of being able to log out of life? Valhalla West didn’t make him pay rent on his little apartment. IRS agents didn’t know he existed. There were no texts from ex-wives haggling over dredged up flotsam still unresolved years after the divorce or teenagers driving by at all hours of the night raising hell and keeping him awake.

There were perks to being a vegetative guinea pig in a military hospital subsidized by a major game company.

Reggie needed coffee the second he thought that.

Easing onto the couch with a cup of java that claimed to replicate authentic Seattle grinders, Reggie flipped on the television and found his new favorite channel: Wounded Legion.

The TV was interactive, programmed with a ton of features his little flatscreen back home had lacked. He was able to browse personal and faction info, albeit without all the options he could access from in game. He’d gone to bed after setting up the new construction orders on Cagamere V. By now, the construction bots ought to have finished making the upgrades.

He browsed the listing of Wounded Legion planets:

[Green Zone]

[Schet IX]

[Alcon Prime]

[Turrim Auream Starport]

Reggie frowned. The listing hadn’t updated.

Shaking his head that a game could interface with the human brain but not keep a simple database current, Reggie searched for an option to refresh.

[Faction > Roster > News (18) > Rewards > Info]

Eighteen news items? Reggie tapped “News” to see what the hell he’d missed.

He spat his coffee all over the couch when he saw an entry in bright red.

[Cagamere V Captured by Liberty Clan]

This wasn’t time to go looking for answers. Reggie needed to log in.

Immediately.

[Apartment > Logout]

Reggie tapped the word.

[Really Logout? Y/N]

UNABLE TO LOG OUT; USER BODY NOT AVAILABLE

“Do we have to go through this song and dance every time?” he demanded.

The button remained silent.

[Relog options: Apartment - Armored Souls - Silent Shuriken - More Options]

Reggie mashed his finger against the button for Armored Souls and watched the vertigo-inducing swirl of colors whisk him away.

Chapter Nineteen

Within minutes, Reggie had assembled Alpha Platoon and the leaders of Bravo and Charlie Platoons in the War Room. He’d slept in after a long night preparing Cagamere V for becoming a listening post, and most of Wounded Legion was already asleep and logged in.

“So,” Chase said matter-of-factly. “You saw.”

Reggie heard the implications there. Wounded Legion territory had shrunk back to pre-Cagamere levels, and Chase had warned him that someone might be working against them.

“I want to see the combat logs,” Reggie said.

June sighed and took control of the holographic display and began the playback. “It’s not much to look at. Charlie Platoon finished their survey of the northern polar region at 0322 hours server time. Bravo platoon finished theirs six minutes later. Both teams were to their drop ships and off Cagamere V by 0340.” June fast-forwarded the action. “At 0402 server time, Reggie gives the orders for construction of new outposts at the surveyed locations.”

In rapid motion, the zoomed-in view of the northern polar region of Cagamere V grew a landing pad, multiple antenna towers, and outbuildings. It reminded Reggie of the wonders in the old Civilization games, watching the cut-away videos of the old monuments being erected in seconds instead of decades.

June froze the image. “Construction was complete at 0602, precisely two hours after the order was given. That’s standard for construction bots working on a job this size.” She hit the unpause button, and a drop ship appeared just outside the perimeter, landed, and disgorged juggernauts. “We see here that at 0605—just three minutes after the construction bots finish—we’ve already been invaded.”

“How the bloody hell they pull that off?” Frank demanded, scratching his chin in consternation.

“Galactic map updates,” Chase suggested with a shrug. “They saw an uninhabited planet get lassoed by a noob faction and decided to play bully. I know we dropped a good chunk of credits on the Cagamere V project, but it’s a minor setback. I mean, in essence, it just did its job, right?”

Reggie kept his eyes off Chase. Every word of what he was saying was designed to sound reasonable, but Reggie already had the kid’s opinion on the matter. He’d seen something like this coming. Nobody was going to time an assault that precisely without intel, and no one was going to convince Reggie that a mid-tier faction was keeping an eye on a worthless hunk of rock whose only claim to purpose was to defend the quickest approach to a four-planet faction like Wounded Legion.

Someone had to have tipped Liberty Clan off that there was an undefended planet with brand new infrastructure about to complete.

If only the Command skill came with the ability to see loyalty. Bonuses to Piloting and Gunnery, shared tactical data, and being able to access his pilots’ stats during combat paled in comparison to the seemingly minor trick of telling when someone was actively stabbing his whole faction in the back.

Without letting on that he suspected them, Reggie eyed Ellie and ZRod through the holographic field.

What if Ellie’s Commando skills were more than a reflection of her love of first-person shooters? Maybe she fancied herself a female James Bond or a Black Widow.

And ZRod. What kind of name was that? Who didn’t know how to use capital letters? Reggie had shit-canned plenty of applicants who insisted on spelling numbers into their names or using vulgar euphemisms to slip past automated censoring programs on the character creation screen. Why had he opted to let in a guy who spelled his own name wrong?

There were eight other new recruits who weren’t even in the room with them. It could have been any of them—though if Mapple was a double-agent, he was brilliant. The guy drank yogurt from a pint glass and sang kiddie songs to himself when the conversation drifted away from him. Mapple probably needed Dr. Zimmerman more than he needed a spot in Wounded Legion, but he kept his mouth shut on missions and piloted a juggernaut like a pro.

“Reg?” June asked, leaning into Reggie’s field of view. “We losing you here? It’s going to be OK.”

Reggie blinked and shook himself out of his musings. “Yeah. I know. But fuck those Liberty Clan bastards for poaching a cheap planet off us. I was going to hire our NPC guard dogs first thing after login this evening. The planet should have been fine until then. But we lost it, and we need options of what to do about that.”

“We can’t fight ‘em,” Ellie said, shaking her head for emphasis. “Those Liberty guys are twenty times our size and control fifty planets.”

“Hunker down,” Frank suggested with a single, decisive nod. “Beef up the front lines, make ‘em pay if they want to come knocking on our door again.”

Costly, but it was worth considering.

“If they come after us, we can just stay nimble,” Chase said. “There are a ton of minor, independent planets out there. We could even relocate to a sub-base in another sector, keep this place as an emergency fallback. We’d have some long missions for a while, but we could move out of the way and just let these dickwads take our old planets.”

“Noob-bashing is great click-bait fodder,” Lin said. “I could play some of the footage on my stream, start a little brigading action, maybe drop some hints about doxing these fools if they don’t back off. Might even get us Cagamere back.”

ZRod raised a tentative finger, elbows tucked at his sides. “I, uh, think that might be illegal.”

Lin blew a disgusted sigh that sent a lock of loose hair fluttering. “So many dickless lawyers in this world.”

“I have a legal idea,” June said.

Everyone turned and waited to hear it, including Reggie.

“We put our heads down, keep recruiting, and bulldog our way through this,” June said with iron in her voice. “I made it through boot camp and Jump School, and nothing I’ve seen here looks half as tough as those.”

ZRod snickered. “You went to a school for jumping?”

“Out of airplanes,” June said in a growl. “Into enemy territory.”

Eyes wide, ZRod backed a step away from her. “Jesus. You people are hardcore.”

Chase clapped him amiably on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, bud. My feet don’t leave the ground to shoot a basketball. It’s Frank, Reggie, and June with the combat experience.”

Ellie shrank a little. “Hope I didn’t step out of line with any of my commando role play.”

Frank grunted. “Did better than some of the boys I knew in Korea.”

ZRod titled his head over in bewilderment. “That was like a century ago.”

“Don’t keep track exactly,” Frank said. “But I think it’s more like eighty or something.”

“How are we getting our asses kicked at a military game when we have real soldiers running the show?” Ellie asked. She quickly added, “No offense.”

Reggie stared at the holographic map, eyes fixed on the tiny blob of Wounded Legion space. He wished he had a good, truthful answer he felt free to share. But letting the cat out of the bag on the mole idea would only lead to distrust in the ranks. Reggie was their leader. It was his burden to bear the weight of those suspicions and not cast aspersions on anyone until he had evidence to back up his claims.

Instead, he went for platitudes.

“Wars are messy,” Reggie told her. “You can’t defend every hill and beach. Sometimes you’ve got to take a kick in the teeth before you can find the best way to fight back. But I can promise you this: none of us are trained to give up.”

Chapter Twenty

There was no mission that day. Reggie could have taken the legion for a little joyride, just some easy XP and credits, but opted to free his troops for personal missions. A few took him up on the offer. ZRod and Reese ran a merc job; Harper, Hime, and Ellie took a Star League bounty on a smuggler base. The rest logged out for a breather from Armored Souls.

Frank and Reggie were the last two in the Green Zone, shooting pool over beers.

Simulated balls cracked with Reggie’s break. When none went in, Frank circled the table like a predator, sizing up his options.

“I’m just wondering whether we retrench,” Reggie said, holding a half-full pint glass. “Maybe we expanded too quickly. I trust you guys. Alpha Platoon is clean, or I’d eat my dog tags.”

“Maybe the pajama cowboy developed a taste for skulduggery,” Frank suggested, leaning over and taking aim at the one-ball. He snapped a shot, and the yellow ball slammed down into a corner pocket, cue ball drifting to a halt in line to make an easy shot on the 2. “Might want to see about some mustard and relish for those dog tags.”

Reggie shook his head as Frank angled the two-ball gently into a side pocket and rolled the cue ball to the far side of the table near the three. “Don’t believe it. I’d sooner believe the timing of that attack was luck than Chase betraying us. It’s got to be someone from Bravo or Charlie Platoon.”

Frank held out his cue, swinging the tip in tight circles. “Something, something, baby and bathwater,” he grumbled. “Think you’re overreacting here.”

“One of my own guys is feeding us piecemeal to the sharks, and you don’t think it’s serious?” Reggie scoffed.

Frank was a listener. He’d hang around talking about nearly anything, but his judgment wasn’t the reason Reggie was commiserating. The crusty old soldier was just the only one around all the time.

“Never said it wasn’t serious. This business is serious as trench foot,” Frank said. “No. I’m just saying that maybe chucking the engine out of this bus isn’t the way to fix it.”

“They’re not the engine,” Reggie countered. “That’s Alpha Platoon. We can fight fine without them.”

“Bigger bus. Shifting gears. Sure, there’s a bit of grinding, but you can’t move the bus without the newer, bigger engine you just put in. Besides, kick out all of them pups and you’re out one spy and nine new enemies.”

Reggie scowled and surveyed the table. Frank had finally missed a shot, leaving him with an awkward angle to sink the 4. Watching to see if Frank was paying attention, Reggie blinked, calling up a tactical display.

[4-Ball - 13% To Hit]

He angled his cue stick ever so slightly.

[4-Ball - 18% To Hit]

[4-Ball - 35% To Hit]

It wasn’t getting any better than that no matter how much he steadied his hand or shifted his aim. Reggie tried to keep a steady bead as he drew back.

Frank’s cue slammed down onto Reggie’s. “How about you shut that darned thing off and play square?”

Reggie didn’t bother denying the charge. He blinked away the aiming assist, took the shot, and missed, clipping the six-ball.

“So what do I do?” Reggie asked. “I can’t run missions without looking over my shoulder, expecting someone to be feeding my planets to a bigger faction.”

Frank took his shot, neatly parking the four-ball in a corner pocket and careening the cue ball into a knot of congested balls at the center of the table. “Look. I’m a lifelong grunt. I never made the switch to Army Intelligence or whatever they called it after the big war. I didn’t play James Bond as a kid because there wasn’t any such thing yet. You want my advice? If you trust the kid, go talk to Chase. He loves this shit.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Reggie took Frank’s advice and relogged into Silent Shuriken in search of Chase.

When the disorientation of switching universes passed, Reggie was in the starting zone by himself. It occurred to him that he was looking for a high-level ninja who didn’t know Reggie was coming.

Drawing his blade, Reggie sighed through his cloth mask and set off in the hopes of discovering some evidence of where Chase might have gone. The possibilities were nigh endless. As a junior developer, he knew the whole game, even the parts that hadn’t been released yet. For all Reggie knew, Chase was making use of privileged access to test unreleased content.

He popped open his friends list.

[Chase - Shadowmaster L20 - Ghost Forest]

Well, that narrowed things down, at least. Reggie followed crossroads signs and made his way for the Ghost Forest. Since he was only level 4, and the Ghost Forest was recommended for levels 8+, this was certainly going to be a lively search.

The gates to the Ghost Forest looked like one of the Shinto temples Reggie had seen in anime. Two pillars supported a beam with a slight arch, giving the impression of horns. Even by the moonlight, Reggie could make out that the whole gate was painted red.

Taking a breath to steel himself, Reggie entered a crouch and bolted through into the Ghost Forest. As he plunged into darkness, Reggie crossed his hands in front of him, fingers interlaced.

[Bat Sight]

The darkness took on shape. Reggie made out his surroundings as a series of three-dimensional silhouettes, shrouded in halos of silver. Towering trees loomed on all sides. His path curved a winding route before branching several times, ensuring that an unwary traveler would be lost.

Reggie froze. A beast snarled. Then another joined in. Then a whole pack.

Wolves.

Spotting the first of them, Reggie squinted.

[Kurookami - L9 - Severe Risk]

Well, wasn’t Appraise a fun skill in a high-level zone? Quickly scanning the trees above, Reggie pressed his palms together, squatted low, and leaped.

When he landed, Reggie was on a branch fifty feet aboveground, watching in the monochrome gloom as a pack of wolf creatures gathered below him. Perhaps thirty feet away, there was another branch on the next tree large enough to support him. He didn’t have the Feather Dance skill to walk on mere twigs.

As Reggie pondered the odds of making that leap, he heard the yelp from below. One of the wolves flew sideways, spraying a gout of blood that shone crimson even in the shadowy night-vision.

He could appreciate the aesthetic efforts that went into Silent Shuriken, but he was more curious what had just murdered a level 9 monster below him and what its plans for Reggie might be when it was done. He clutched the trunk of his tree perch and worked his way to the far side to watch from better cover.

Wolf after wolf died. Whatever these kurookami were, they were no match for the whirlwind of invisible death that had come for them. When the last of them lay still, the only sound remaining was Reggie’s quickened breath.

“You should be more careful,” Chase said casually from right behind Reggie.

Startled, he whirled and drew his blade, but Chase merely laughed.

“Cool it, tank-boy,” Chase advised. “You came here looking for me. You sorta found me. What’s up?”

Leaning back against the tree trunk, Reggie pulled down his mask. “Thanks for the save. But it’s Armored Souls that has me worried.”

“You don’t say,” Chase said dryly. “I got that impression when you shit yourself and sat around smelling it instead of picking a new mission.”

“You were right about the mole.”

“Yeah. Someone pantsed us good on Cagamere,” Chase agreed. “If they’d gotten there before the buildings finished, you’d have gotten a partial refund.”

“I need to figure out who it was,” Reggie said. “You’ve got admin friends. Any way you can finagle a look at message logs? All I’d need would be to figure out—”

“Whoa,” Chase said with upheld hands. “Stop right there. Big old no-no. Terms of Service. Privacy Policy. All that shit you click mindlessly when you sign up that won’t hold up in court? That’s my day job. I’d get fired, blackballed, and if I’m lucky, maybe not sued.”

“I never saw any of that,” Reggie said. “I got dumped into Armored Souls by my shrink, remember?”

“They didn’t have you sign up?”

Reggie shook his head. “Medical proxy. I didn’t even get control of my account until after the Mechromancer incident.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Chase said. “Still applies to me. You wanna do an end run around the rules, talk to Ken Bradley. See how much his golden boy you really are.”

“You think?” Reggie asked cautiously.

Chase put his hands on Reggie’s shoulders. “Look, man. I’ll help you set traps and run decoy missions. I’ll play the discontented underling begging to be turned into a double-agent. But I can’t dig into server-side crap for you. You come up with an in-game plan, I’m all ears. If you want the keys to the vault, hit up your buddy Ken.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Reggie paced his apartment. The personal message had only gone out five minutes ago. Ken Bradley was a busy guy. He couldn’t possibly be sitting around waiting for comatose players to come begging for favors.

The television was silent. Outside the windows, the midday sun glinted off shining skyscrapers as white-capped mountains rose in the distance. None of it was real, but it was Reggie’s reality. He was as illusory as the cityscape. He was digitally rendered, just like the sunlight.

What difference should it make to Ken Bradley if Reggie got a bit of a helping hand in the game he called home?

Nodding to himself, Reggie knew that was the line of logic he wanted to pursue. Call Ken out on having relegated to this existence. Make him feel guilty for stranding Reggie in a universe where not only was he a small fish in a big pond—which was fair—he had to deal with cheating, conniving, backstabbing troops selling him out to the highest bidder.

If one of those new recruits logged in with an Elephant in their hangar, he’d know who’d been bought.

If only it had been that simple.

The doorbell rang.

Reggie practically sprinted across the living room to answer it.

Ken Bradley stepped inside the instant the door opened, taking Reggie’s hand and shaking it. “Gotta say. Love what you’ve done with the place. How’s it going, Reg? Can I call you Reg?”

“Uh, sure. Listen, thanks for coming by. I had something I wanted to talk to you about, Mr. Bradley.”

“Ken,” he replied, striding across the apartment like he owned the place and heading directly for the fridge. He helped himself to a beer, grabbing the cap and using the hem of his Valhalla West polo shirt to twist it loose. “So what’s on your mind, Reg? Got some feedback from a shut-in’s perspective? Bug pop up somewhere and the Q/A team giving you the runaround? What’s up?”

“Armored Souls needs a loyalty system,” Reggie said, trying to play into the issues Ken Bradley seemed to be expecting from him. “I’ve got a sell-out in my new faction, and—”

“Hell of a thing, huh?” Ken replied. “Love the faction system. Intrigue, plotting, all kinds of emergent game-play that we don’t even have to program.”

“Well, there’s an exploit being used to feed sensitive data to the enemy,” Reggie said.

“Exploit?”

“Yeah. Anyone in the faction can report intel to the enemy without the faction leader knowing.”

“Dude. That’s warfare. Shit’s been going that way since Sun Tzu and probably even guys before all that got written down,” Ken said, shaking his head and tilting back one of Reggie’s beers. “Ahh, even better than the real stuff.”

To his taste buds, maybe. Not to Reggie’s. Whether it was his imagination or not, he felt like he could taste the ones and zeroes in the brew.

“Yeah, but it ruins the faction experience.”

“Does it?”

“Doesn’t it?” Reggie echoed back. “I’ve got fifteen people, and no clue who’s stabbing me in the back. I lost a new forward base just minutes after I put up new defensive structures on it.”

Ken scratched the back of his head. “Bummer.”

“There’s no way they could have timed it that precisely without help from an inside man.”

“I wouldn’t say no way,” Ken argued. “Even luck could have accounted for it. But you’re probably right that someone’s playing both sides here. But that’s working as intended. I can’t force players to be loyal to their faction. Hell, nothing’s stopping players from making out-of-game arrangements on third-party sites. Besides, it makes the game more realistic. If you’re having trouble with spies and turncoats, come up with countermeasures.”

Ken raised his beer in a toast as he headed for the door. “Best of luck. I may poke in once in a while to see how things are going. But you can be sure I’ll be watching with rapt interest from afar—emphasis on the afar part—to see how this all plays out. Ciao.”

The door closed behind him, and Reggie was no better off than when Ken Bradley had arrived. It hadn’t even been worth the price of the beer Ken had taken, and Reggie didn’t pay for the beer.

Chapter Twenty-Three

It was days later when Reggie finally brought his platoons out for a conquest. The dolomite mines of Nephtali would be a healthy addition to the coffers of Wounded Legion. Baking under the twin suns’ radiation, the planet was devoid of life but not of defenses. They’d weathered withering weapons fire from dug-in defenders beneath bulwarks buried in the remote regions surrounding the mines. It had been one of the longest missions Reggie had undertaken, cleansing half a dozen scattered outposts that all had to be neutralized before the planet would surrender.

“Think this is the last of them,” June radioed.

TARGET DATA RECEIVED

A pair of Jackals appeared on the mini-map at AA-107 and AA-108, emerging from behind an outcropping of rock some 1,500m distant.

“Thatchet, ZRod, fall back,” Reggie ordered. “You two’ve taken enough punishment. We’re all going home in one piece tonight.”

“Except for Hime,” Chase reminded him. She’d stumbled into an ambush as she wandered wide of the division, taking shots from multiple sides. Her juggernaut, an Osprey named WindDancer, hadn’t survived the time it took everyone else to reach her with fire support.

“Except Hime,” Reggie amended. “But the rest of you are coming through this. This’ll be a good win. A little out of our neighborhood but worth the extra transit time.”

“Says the guy who doesn’t have work in the morning,” ZRod said. “I’m willing to risk it to speed this show up.”

Insubordination. Was it a plot to undermine Reggie, or just a guy on the clock to wake up for a job detailing sedans and minivans?

“It’s your insurance and XP on the line. You willing to risk it? Level 12 wants to know,” Reggie said. “If you want to speed things up, head back for the drop ship with some salvage.”

“Fine,” ZRod replied. “I’ll haul scrap. Just step on it. I’ve gotta be up in… thirty-five minutes.”

While the argument dwindled to a sullen submission, the rest of the division was closing in and launching long-range attacks.

One of the two Jackals exploded in a rock concert of crisscrossed lasers.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 127/128]

“Can I get a woot woot?” Chase shouted, taking credit for the kill amid the flurry.

[Secondary Objective Complete: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 128/128]

Reggie let out a breath that deflated him like a pool float. He slumped in the pilot’s seat of Vortex. “Good job, everyone. Clean up. Take high-value scrap; we don’t have room for a quarter of this wreckage. I’ve gotta make a call.”

Switching frequencies, Reggie contacted the mining base camp. “This is King, head of Wounded Legion. I expect your unconditional surrender, or we will be forced to destroy you.”

There was a protocol. AI commanders were programmed to listen for keywords. Reggie had just ticked off all the boxes on that checklist.

[Primary Objective Complete: Force the Surrender of Nephtali to Wounded Legion]

Wearily, Reggie trudged back to the drop ship along with the rest of Wounded Legion. A smile crept onto his face as he realized his name badge had changed. There was a little plus sign after “King, Commander 15.” He had leveled up. Finally, he’d be able to take Command Radius 5 and boost the entire faction’s combat effectiveness.

He spent the trip back to the Green Zone planning out his skill points. By the time they arrived, he was officially Commander L16.

[PER: 7]

[GUN: 12]

[SHO: 2]

[AGI: 2]

[PIL: 9]

[TGH: 8]

[CMD: 25]

[Command Radius 5]

[Heat Management 2]

[Hardened Systems]

There was nothing spectacular about it. He hadn’t taken any active perks like Rage Mode or Called Shot. The Command Radius took 5 perk slots all by itself and did nothing for Vortex’s battlefield performance. Heat Management was just to let him be a little lax about holding his fire on the Plasma Launchers. Hardened Systems just reduced the chance of critical damage to Vortex’s internal workings.

But there was a swell of pride in knowing that he’d maxed out the Command Radius perk line. It was a mark of dedication to the success of his faction over his own personal glory.

And that was what the conquest of Nephtali had been all about.

Once the juggernauts were all safely tucked away in their Green Zone hangars, Reggie yawned and headed for his quarters. “Night, everyone. Good work out there. We’ll have something fun and easy on the agenda for tomorrow.”

As soon as the door closed behind him, Reggie rushed to his computer terminal. So long as everyone was still logged into Armored Souls, Reggie could track their movements. If he could spot someone behaving out of sorts, some action that didn’t fit their normal routine, he could cross-reference that with the assault he fully expected on Nephtali any minute now.

He waited.

Frank headed off to the machine shop.

Chase visited Lin’s quarters.

June logged out.

Hime was back logged in after her demise earlier in the evening, hanging out in the rec room with Harper and Rich, probably getting the battle recounted to her from the time of her death onward.

Compton and Ellie shot pool.

ZRod logged out.

Reese and Nordbrook sat on the couch. Reggie quickly accessed the television feed and saw that they were watching women’s tennis. He shrugged.

Mapple followed Thatchet around as he toured the hangar—maybe planning out upgrades to his Imp. Reggie went in and made a copy of Yoink’s current load out to crosscheck later.

There was no smoking gun.

[Player Leveled Up: Thatchet - Scout L7]

“Or Mapple was just giving him build advice,” Reggie muttered.

As he kept watch, player after player logged out. Even Frank headed off to his quarters for some shut-eye. Reggie was left as the lone member of Wounded Legion awake in the game.

Reggie made one last check to assure himself that Nephtali was still under Wounded Legion control:

[Green Zone]

[Schet IX]

[Alcon Prime]

[Turrim Auream Starport]

[Nephtali]

He checked their income.

[Wounded Legion - Net Income - 106,000Cr/Day]

“Five bells and all is well,” Reggie murmured, noting that it was just past 0500 hours. “Time for bed.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Reggie awoke in his bunk to the sound of a grating alarm he’d set so he wouldn’t oversleep the arrival of his troops. Aside from Frank, the rest kept fairly regular hours. Odd to think that when Reggie was a kid, he’d lost countless nights’ sleep playing video games into the wee hours with the volume off as his parents slept. Now, a regular dose of Armored Souls was the perfect recipe for a full night’s slumber.

His mustache-twirling master plan to smoke out his mole had fizzled in bland and pedestrian fashion. Everyone had logged out in good order and without raising undue suspicion.

Wishing he kept a personal coffee maker in his quarters, Reggie scratched his back and retrieved a tablet computer from the bedside table.

Out of habit, he double-checked Wounded Legion holdings:

[Green Zone]

[Schet IX]

[Alcon Prime]

[Turrim Auream Starport]

Staring at the tablet in disbelief, he checked their faction income.

[Wounded Legion - Net Income - 83,500Cr/Day]

“Fuckers!”

Immediately, he backed out a menu level.

[Faction > Roster > News (14) > Rewards > Info]

Reggie tapped “News,” already knowing what he’d find there.

[Nephtali Captured by Liberty Clan]

It was right there nestled among such mundane items as production reports from Alcon Prime and trade updates from Turrim Auream Starport. Just a routine bit of getting bent over and screwed on the front lawn while the whole galaxy—and Ken Bradley—watched and pretended not to notice.

Fuming, Reggie went to the wall computer terminal and looked up the contact info for Liberty Clan. Luckily, he could just tap the faction name in his message log to find a contact link.

[Liberty Clan - Freedom Coach Napoleon]

Just the sarcastic, backhanded title made Reggie hate the guy before his face ever appeared on screen.

“Hey, buddy,” Napoleon said with a shy, unassuming grin. “You need a shoulder to cry on?” He was thin-faced and strong-jawed, with the sort of upswept hair that no guy could get without shopping in the women’s aisle at the drug store. Reggie would have given him credit for being in his mid-thirties, older than most of his gamer peers. Probably how he’d risen to leadership of a faction—he was the adult in the room.

But, as predicted, Reggie hated him instantly.

“Where you get off poaching planets the second I take them?” Reggie demanded.

“If you poach the planets instead of frying them in oil, the result is a healthier planet,” Napoleon replied without missing a beat.

“You know what I mean,” Reggie snapped. “There are a million uninhabited worlds out there better than Cagamere V or even Nephtali. Why not take one of those?”

“Have you ever been to a bar, and there are all these chicks hanging out, talking amongst themselves, minding their own business?” Napoleon asked. “How do you pick just one? But then, some guy walks in and starts making a move on the blonde in the low-cut red dress. That’s when you know—she’s the one you want. Not only do you know without a doubt that she’s going home with you, but you know that there’s not another woman in the bar who’ll touch the other guy after watching him go down in embarrassing flames. That’s a guy who’s gonna need a box of tissues when he gets home. And that’s you, King old chum.”

“You’re a goddamn bully; that’s what you are,” Reggie said, pointing a finger at the smug face on the screen. “I know your type. Liberty Clan’s big, but Wounded Legion’s not going to stand idly by while you pick away at us.”

Napoleon turned down his lower lip in a pout. “Aw. Sounds like someone’s got a case of heroes. Painful condition. But you are going to get your ass kicked, time after time. We’ll take planets you don’t defend. We’ll run you off planets you do. That’s a nice space station you’ve got in Turrim Auream. That’s Latin, in case you hadn’t noticed. Means golden tower. Bit overblown for how far out it is from the real commercial traffic, but hey, it’s a nice name. We’re taking it from you tomorrow.”

Reggie’s breath seethed through his nostrils like a penned bull. “You won’t get away with this. We’ll stop you.”

“No, you won’t,” Napoleon said, shaking his head in mock sadness. “I ran the calculations. There’s absolutely no way your little faction can stop Liberty Clan. We will bring truth, justice, and the Liberty Clan way to Turrim Auream and the rest of the—frankly, horribly named—planets in your little rock garden.” He gave a sloppy salute, and the screen went blank.

Reggie punched the black, featureless glass where that smug face had just been.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Reggie cleared the War Room. Only June, Chase, Lin, and Frank were allowed in. Still fuming, as soon as the doors closed behind them, Reggie unloaded.

“That sleazy, sarcastic bastard plans to keep taking planets as we capture them,” Reggie said, stalking back and forth on one side of the holograph stand as Alpha Platoon watched from the far side. “I had ASHARI run the numbers, and she agreed with ‘Freedom Coach’ Napoleon that we don’t stand a chance against Liberty Clan.”

Lin sighed. “Well, it’s been fun. Let’s sell off the jugs and go play Petty Zoo Manager.”

Everyone glared at her.

“What?” Lin asked. “I’m joking. We’ll find a way to fuck these guys right back.”

“It’s a numbers game,” Chase said. “We can’t fight them on a planet of their choosing. But we can take worlds rapid-fire. Maybe spread them out too far as they expand. Take places with negative income. Steal neutral systems next to some of the real big boys out there.”

“What if they let us keep one or two?” June asked. “What then? We swallow our own poison pills.”

Chase grinned in response. “That’s the beauty of it. If we make liars out of them, they might get sick of dealing with us. There are always creative ways to dump unwanted systems, even if we can’t just drop them.”

June called up the galactic map. She highlighted Wounded Legion in green and Liberty Clan in purple. The size disparity was daunting. “What if they manage to keep up with recruiting efforts? What if they manage to build infrastructure on the deadbeat planets we stick them with? It would be like spraying lighter fluid on a lit grill.”

“I see you’ve camped with my family,” Chase remarked.

Reggie stepped in, calming now that there were other voices laying out workable options. Anything was better than railing against the unfairness of the game universe. If Ken Bradley didn’t care, that was the same as saying that the universe itself didn’t care about fair play.

“Fine,” he said. “But if you don’t like Chase’s idea, what’ve you got to offer that’s better?”

“Recruiting,” June said. “We pitch ourselves as the invincible underdogs, down but never defeated. We’ll attract pilots looking for this kind of challenge. We get to the point where we can launch tactical strikes back on their worlds. They take one of ours; we take a better one of theirs. We counter-punch and make the war unsustainable for them.”

“Not sure how many players out there are the knights in shining armor you’re looking for,” Chase commented. “I read the forums. Most of these guys like being the bullies.”

Reggie held up his hands. “I’m not going to say we’ll go 100 percent in either direction. I just want to know which has the best chance of getting us free from Liberty Clan’s oppression.”

Silent until just then, Frank snorted. “Liberty Clan. Hmph. False liberty’s always been the toughest to fight against. Tough to get a fella to sign up for sticking a thumb in liberty’s eye, especially if it’s your word against the guy banging the drum and playing the fife. Just gotta roll up those sleeves and show ‘em the fight. Can’t fight forever with your fingers crossed behind your back. Colors show true eventually.”

“Inspiring,” Chase said. “But useless. People see us get our asses kicked on a daily basis and the last thing on their minds will be signing up to get their free beatings.”

While they argued back and forth, Reggie sneaked into the player generated mission creator and assigned two custom missions to the four of them.

[Primary Objective: Increase Wounded Legion Roster to 30 Active Players]

[Primary Objective: Increase Wounded Legion Faction Holdings to 10]

Chase was the first to comment. “So… you want us to double our headcount and triple our non-base holdings?”

“That a problem?” Reggie asked, fists on his hips.

“No, sir,” a ragged chorus answered him.

Chapter Twenty-Six

After letting Bravo and Charlie Platoons do their own thing for the day, the next morning, Reggie awoke to find himself flagged in a forum post. June had come up with an advertisement for Wounded Legion.

Looking for a challenge? Ready to step up and be all you can be?

Wounded Legion is recruiting levels 10 and up, all specs and juggernauts. Currently at war and unwilling to back down. Seeking pilots who want constant battle in a professional, tactically minded environment.

Reggie got a chuckle from that last line. Wounded Legion was nothing like professional. And how could a faction not be tactically minded in a game that was essentially 90 percent tactics?

[Faction > Roster > News (77) > Rewards > Info]

With a sigh, Reggie opened his news items, which included applications from a casting call of potential recruits.

Level 5… DELETE.

Can’t type a complete sentence… DELETE.

Level 12 with a few juggernauts… SAVE.

Level 8… DELETE.

Didn’t give any info at all… DELETE.

Swore at Reggie in every sentence… DELETE.

Applied just to taunt Wounded Legion… DELETE.

Level 10 with one heavy juggernaut… SAVE.

Asking if the Level 17 pilot who posted the ad is single… DELETE.

Reggie shook his head at the flotsam that drifted past his eyes. It wasn’t as if June had been asking for naval aviation certs or degrees in military science. She wasn’t asking them to front piles of cash or have specific juggernaut and skill builds. It was a “warm bodies please apply” ad, and it was like skimming the pool after a kid’s birthday party.

It wasn’t that there weren’t a few candidates mixed in once Reggie had flushed the ones who couldn’t even meet the simple requirements of being Level 10 and having a working understanding of electronic communication. It was that the ones who were left had been sullied by association merely being in the same list with the riffraff who’d propositioned June, insulted veterans, and typed the word “you” as a single letter.

He tapped a message to June and invited her to his quarters.

A few minutes later, June showed up with two bottles of beer from the bar. The tablet in Reggie’s hands caught her eye. “What’s up? Had a chance to browse our list of Nobel Prize applicants?”

Reggie chuckled. “So you’ve looked already too.” He accepted one of the beers as June sat down beside him on the bed.

“Only 15 percent of the server population is level 10,” June explained. “I figured if we’re running essentially an insurgent action against Liberty Clan, we would needed more seasoned players. But there are a couple level 8 and 9s that could fit in if we widened the net.”

A wider net? Was that what they needed? More dregs instead of fewer?

“They just don’t seem military.”

“No shit, Reg,” June said. “They’re not. This is a game world. They’re gamers. If it were up to me, I’d just open the floodgates until we get past this Liberty Clan thing and sort the good apples from the bad later.”

Reggie squeezed shut his eyes. “None of this seems right. Armored Souls is my whole life right now. I don’t want to wake up and deal with loudmouthed, incompetent, unprofessional thugs.”

“They’re not like that,” June assured him.

Reggie tapped his tablet and brought up the application where someone wanted to sleep with June from seeing her thumbnail as the ad poster.

“OK. That one is. But most are fine. They’re gamers, and this is a game. It’s their natural environment.”

Armored Souls was anything but a natural environment. It was a gladiatorial area on a galactic scale and a foxhole the size of a single faction all at once. And if there was one thing Reggie had gotten hammered into him, it was that the soldiers you went into combat with were closer than family.

“You don’t fill empty seats at Thanksgiving from the bus station,” Reggie said.

June squinted at him. “You sure you’re feeling all right? Maybe I can get in touch with Dr. Zimmerman. Maybe he’d be more help than me right now.”

“No,” Reggie said, catching June by the arm as she stood to leave. “I just need a friend right now.”

Glancing to the bed and back, June relaxed. “Is that what we are? Just friends.”

Oh, Lord. Reggie had stepped on a mine before realizing he was in the minefield. See? This would have been a perfect spot for say, 10 ranks in Command to come with the ability to rewind an awkward conversation with a subordinate and try again.

“That’s not what I meant,” Reggie said. “I just don’t need a shrink right now. This isn’t a mental problem; it’s a staffing issue.” An inkling of a plan wafted somewhere in the words he’d just spoken. “On second thought. Yeah. Tell Doc Zimmerman to meet me at my apartment.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Dr. Zimmerman arrived at Reggie’s Seattle Lite apartment bearing a six-pack of beer and wearing a Saints jersey. Though Reggie didn’t have the television on, he was vaguely aware that in the real world, it was Sunday and the middle of football season.

“Hi,” Zimmerman said with that forced smile of his that Reggie was beginning to suspect was the only kind he knew. “Thought you might want some company for game day.”

“Hey, Doc,” Reggie said, allowing Zimmerman inside. “Not what I brought you here for, but I appreciate the offer. I can’t even keep track of the standings with all the other shit going on right now.”

Zimmerman set the six-pack on one of the side tables and helped himself to a bottle. “Nurse Mallet informed me of your faction’s plight. It must be an awkward position, knowing that you can’t just log out and forget it all.”

If that was supposed to be an opening to vent his true feelings, Reggie saw right through it. Popping the cap on a beer of his own, Reggie made his counteroffer. “I need your help, Doc. And I don’t mean tinkering with my noggin. I’m talking about actionable, in-game effects here.”

Zimmerman cocked his head. “You need me to bring in a Level 20 Commander with a remote neural link and an army of zombie juggernauts?”

Reggie blinked. Goddamn it! He’d forgotten the connection entirely. He had only been thinking of Zimmerman the doctor, not Zimmerman the Mechromancer, scourge of shut-in players who only wanted to talk to NPCs.

“Um, that wasn’t why I wanted to talk to you,” Reggie stammered. “I wasn’t. I mean, don’t—”

“Good,” Zimmerman replied crisply. “Because I don’t like mixing my personal and professional lives. Plus, my build isn’t really meant for teams. I spend my whole day solving people’s problems. At night, I prefer to relax, sit back, and let my mindless army do my bidding.”

“Great,” Reggie said with a sigh of relief. As much as having Zimmerman on board might have helped, he didn’t know how he’d handle trying to manage his therapist as a commanding officer. “Then maybe you can help me with my real problem.”

“You have a problem more pressing than a larger faction intent on keeping you under their jack boot?” Zimmerman asked.

Reggie took a long drink of the doc’s beer before answering. “No. It’s all part of the same puzzle. I’m outgunned. I have some folks I can’t completely trust. I can solve two of those problems with one simple bit of info from you.”

Eyeing Reggie cautiously, Zimmerman backed a step toward the door. “I don’t have any special pull with the Valhalla West people. We’re on friendly terms, but I don’t ask them to violate game rules on my behalf.”

“Nothing like that,” Reggie assured him. “I just need the names and in-game contact info for the other patients like me.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The next day, Reggie scrolled to the bottom of the Wounded Legion player roster and took satisfaction in the additional names Dr. Zimmerman had helped him add. These fine fellows had been more than happy to tag along with someone in the same boat—or in this case, hospital bed—as them.

They were waiting for him in the hangar, lined up and at proper military attention:

[Chipz - Scout L4 - Chaser]

[SwampFox - Gunner L8 - SwampThing]

[Monty - Commando L5 - Tallyho]

[Spike - Gunner L7 - Nails]

None met the level requirement he and June had agreed on for the advertisement, but all of them had been wounded in the line of duty and brought into the Armored Souls universe as part of Valhalla West’s veteran charity initiative.

“Welcome to Wounded Legion,” Reggie said to them. “You are all aware that we are in a state of war. The Liberty Clan is an affront to the name they’ve taken. They are petty thieves and thugs. We are outmanned and outgunned, but we’ve got something they can’t match. Do you know what that is?”

“Guts,” SwampFox guessed.

“Maybe,” Reggie replied, pacing the line. “But what else?”

“Guile,” Spike suggested.

“Not convinced of that one,” Reggie said, shaking his head. He didn’t plan to make them spend all day playing guessing games, however. “We have more soldiers than they do. And at the end of the day, war is a soldier’s game. They log in to play at being what we’ve been trained for, what we’ve bled for, what we’ve pledged our lives for.”

Chase commented from the sidelines. “I was under the impression that we were in a game.”

Reggie looked over and met Chase’s eye. “It’s more than that to some of us.”

“Permission to speak,” Monty said, still at attention.

“Go ahead,” Reggie said. “I’m looking to run a tight outfit here, but this isn’t actually the army. Speak your piece.”

Monty gave a curt nod. “The psych said I’m not getting out of my bed back in the real world. Not sure how long I’ll be able to keep up the good fight here. Body’s about done for.”

Reggie swallowed. “This whole assignment is voluntary. You ever feel like maybe there’s some other way you’d rather spend your final days, I’ll understand. Believe me. I’ll understand. But back there, we’ve got bodies failing us. We’re not useful to anyone. That’s the toughest thing for me to accept. Right here, right now, we have a chance to carve out a little place for ourselves or at least go down trying. Fighting. I’ve got to fight every day to keep going. Most of my friends here in Wounded Legion log out every morning. They go to work. They go to school. They pick up groceries and play with their kids, drink real beer, swim in real pools, and have real sex. Us? The four of you, me, and Frank are here because this is what we’ve got left. It’s as much or as little as we make of it, and I vote that we make all we can. You with me?”

“Sir, yes, sir!” the four barked in unison.

“Dismissed,” Reggie said, then broke into a grin. “You guys are going to do great here. Don’t worry over the formalities. We’re friends around here. We’ll get you up to speed on the intricacies and faction politics, then worry about getting your jugs up to par and deciding on skill progressions. If anyone needs build advice, Chase is your man.”

June stepped in. “And if anyone needs a shoulder to cry on and doesn’t want to bother Dr. Zimmerman, I’m Nurse Mallet back in the real world.”

Spike gawked at her. “Really? You? I wouldn’t have known that—”

June put a finger to her lips. “Most of them have only seen the digital version of me. Let’s let a lady keep her secrets… corporal.”

With a frantic nod, Spike agreed. “Yes, ma’am!”

Reggie took in the scene. The new guys would be fine. He’d make sure of that. He’d added another five bays to the Green Zone hangar, stretching Wounded Legion’s funds to their limits. With Liberty Clan leaning on them, expanding their income was going to be tricky. But even if they had to run mercenary missions to pay upkeep costs, Reggie swore he wouldn’t downside the legion.

“We’re going to win this thing,” Reggie promised everyone.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

That night, Chase summoned Reggie into Silent Shuriken. They perched atop the roof of a pagoda some nine stories above the flagstone courtyard below with the night wind whipping past their masks.

“Why are we meeting up here instead of in a nice quiet room at an inn or something?” Reggie asked. He felt like he ought to be shivering, but for all the chill in the air, he wasn’t cold.

Chase stepped to the edge of the rooftop and crouched, looking down. “Because those are the sorts of places people look for covert meetings to overhear. There’s a whole class of missions in this game that revolves around that mechanic. Sneak into X. Listen. Overhear Y tell Z about Q. Report back to your lord. Anyone with half a brain in his head can figure out that the same thing applies to players. That’s why I like the idea of meeting up here. No one can approach us without me spotting them. None of the hearing-enhancement perks or items—even combined—have the range to listen in from afar. There’s no lip reading because we’re shinobi and wear masks.”

“Fine,” Reggie relented. “Explain to me in one tirade or less why we’re having this meeting. I was thinking maybe you just wanted to switch up for the night before getting saddled with a bunch of needy noobs to train.”

Chase snickered. “The Needy Noob Platoon. I like the sound of that.”

“I was going to go with Delta Platoon.”

“Whatever,” Chase said, standing and walking the perimeter of the roof as easily as most people would pace a room at ground level. “I wanted to talk to you about espionage.”

Reggie peered over the edge, trying to fight back against the vertigo sensation that snuck up on him even in game. “Well, this whole game is espionage. Seems appropriate.”

“Not Silent Shuriken,” Chase said. “Armored Souls. I want your permission to act as an agent on behalf of Wounded Legion. I could go behind your back easy, but I want to be up front with you about this. We may have a mole—I’m damn near positive we do—but there’s no reason we can’t play offense as well as defense.”

“You thinking of joining Liberty Clan?”

Chase laughed so hard Reggie thought he might plummet from the roof. Backlit against the full moon, he looked like a werewolf, convulsing in his transformation. “No,” Chase said when he recovered the power of speech. “They’d be idiots to let me in, knowing I’d just come from Wounded Legion. I’d have to create an alt account and earn my way up from scratch. That’s too much like real work.”

“What then?”

Reggie didn’t have a head for this duplicity. There were probably a million obvious schemes he was overlooking.

“I mean to bribe a guy from Liberty Clan to be our mole.”

Reggie made a sour face.

“Oh, come on!” Chase prodded. “It’s perfectly fair. They’re doing it to us.”

“We think.”

“If they’re not, they might as well be. You said yourself, Ken Bradley doesn’t care. He thinks this is all fair play in a war game.”

Reggie considered for a moment. “We have terms of service to consider. I can’t risk a ban.”

“You’re not the one taking the risk,” Chase assured him. He reached inside his shirt and pulled out a concealed blade, twirling it through an intricate weaving pattern through his fingers, he presented it to Reggie hilt-first.

Reggie accepted it.

[Dirk +5 Heart-Stab](unable to equip; requires level 10)

“Nice,” Reggie said. “What do I do with it?”

Chase took it back. “You? Nothing. Me? With your permission, sir, I’d like to show you.”

Chapter Thirty

Reggie followed Chase on a frenetic run through the city of Crescent Port. They traveled by rooftop, leaping from one building to the next. Wind whipped at the cloth of their uniforms as they flew through the air. Clay tiles clattered under Reggie’s clumsy feet while Chase tiptoed across them at a spring, quiet as a mouse’s sigh.

When Chase dropped to ground level, Reggie caught a quick glimpse of his fingers tracing a pattern in the air. Grouped up with him, Reggie was privy to the skill he’d just used.

CHASE USED [Shadow Armor]

CHASE USED [Prickling Hairs]

Wondering what type of trouble his companion was expecting in this lonely ally behind a teahouse, Reggie prepared for the worst. He sketched a symbol from his own skill scroll.

[Spider Eyes]

It wasn’t much, but Reggie was now able to see around himself on all sides. The effect was disorienting at first, being able to see the point where the peripheral vision of his left and right eyes overlapped behind him. Soon enough, he grew accustomed to it.

“I hate that one,” Chase said softly. “Makes me feel like I’m going to puke.”

“What are we doing here?” Reggie asked, taking Chase’s comment as evidence that it was safe to speak.

“We’re meeting a guy inside. Name is Choumi.”

“What’s that mean?” Reggie asked.

Chase shrugged. “Nothing. Same as Chase and King mean nothing in Japanese. Just a bunch of sounds he liked. I dunno. Get your head screwed on right, and watch your back. Getting killed here is no big deal; just have to respawn. Getting caught as spies might have consequences in Armored Souls.”

As Chase started toward the back door of the teahouse, Reggie caught him by the arm. “Wait. We’re meeting a contact here.”

“Ooh. Look who’s getting in spycraft lingo all of a sudden. Yeah. Choumi is part of Liberty Clan.”

None of this felt right. As Reggie followed Chase inside, they were met with curious NPC eyes from all around. Most of the patrons were dressed as respectable tradesmen, merchants, craftsmen, or soldiers. Only he and Chase wore ninja garb.

With his Spider Eyes active, Reggie was able to watch as the furtive glances became bold and filled with hatred as soon as the onlookers thought they weren’t being observed.

A hostess guided the two of them to a table off to one side of the room, walled off on three sides with a shin-high table and cushions to sit on. There was already a man waiting for them, dressed in a blue-and-black ninja uniform and silver sash.

“You must be—” but Chase cut Reggie off with an upraised hand, not even looking back at him. Right. This was his arena.

“You got the item?” Choumi asked, for there could be no doubt who they were meeting if Chase was stopping to talk with him.

Chase reached back into his shirt for the dagger. He held it out sideways, grasping the blade as if his glove were the sheath. Choumi’s eyes lit with avarice.

The instant Choumi reached for the weapon, Chase jerked it back out of reach. “Info first,” Chase said. “Non-negotiable.”

“How do I know it’s legit?” Choumi asked.

Chase’s voice was cold. “This is a PVP area. I could lay your entrails out from here to the city gates before you had a blade in your hand.”

“So what? It’s a free trip back to my dojo.”

Slowly tucking away [Dirk +5 Heart-Stab], Chase flicked his wrist and a different weapon appeared in his grasp. This blade was black and translucent, flowing like a heavy fog yet always keeping a pointed shape.

“You know what this is?”

Choumi shrank back. “Only from the wiki. Never seen one in game. They’re like a one-in-a-million drop.”

“They’re not loot at all,” Chase corrected him. “You only get them for performing special services to the dev team. The drop rate on the wiki is just a guess, and it’s wrong. If I stab you with this, it’s as good as a one-week ban. You’d have to roll up a new character to play in the meantime.”

“They better not let that into the released version,” Choumi said with false bluster.

Chase slammed the [Dirk +5 Heart-Stab] down on the table between them. “Talk. Make it worth my time and you walk away a happy man.”

“Geez,” Choumi said. “If you guys were half this scary in Armored Souls, no one would fuck with you.”

“Give us time,” Reggie warned, trying to match Chase’s dark menace. “We will be.”

He could only promise himself that wasn’t empty bluster. Reggie wanted to be the kind of faction that no one messed around with, but that day was a long ways off.

“Fine,” Choumi said, visibly forcing himself to relax and take a breath. “Liberty Clan doesn’t defend all our holdings. We mostly raid and hold new planets, then once interest dies down in someone taking them back, we leave ‘em naked to reduce maintenance costs.”

“Give us names,” Chase demanded. “I want at least one actionable target we can hit tomorrow, and the dagger’s yours.”

“Torbek,” Choumi said. “It’s near you guys, maybe a fifteen- or twenty-minute ride from your op center depending on your drop ships. Napoleon knows the cycle rate on the galactic intel updates. We garrisoned five platoons there just before the last intel sweep. What you see listed is the defensive rating that keeps people from sneaking in and taking it. Right now, there’s nothing there but default automated defenses.”

Chase looked to Reggie. “Your call.”

Reggie nodded. “Give him the dagger. If it turns out his intel is bogus, we come back and give him the other one.”

Chase pressed his hand down on the [Dirk +5 Heart-Stab] and used the leverage to push himself to his feet. Once he was standing, he lifted his hand and left the dagger. Reggie followed him out of the teahouse.

“Nice work,” Chase said once they were alone and back atop a roof not far from the meeting site. “You played that cool.”

“What the fuck’s up with that other dagger?” Reggie asked. “Who in their right mind puts in a weapon that lets players ban one another?”

Chase snickered. “It doesn’t. It’s a prestige piece. Stats aren’t horrible, but I’ve got better. Stuff listed on the wiki is datamined troll bait from the dev team. Everyone on the project carries one, but you’ll never get the same story twice about what they’re supposed to be able to do.”

“So, Torbek?” Reggie asked. Chase nodded. “Any idea what it is?”

“Other than our next target?” Chase asked. “Nope. But I’m all for taking it and finding out.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Contrary to Chase’s jesting suggestion of attacking it to find out what was there, Reggie consulted the galactic map before committing to an assault on Torbek. The place was a banking center, the digital-age equivalent of a gold mine. Reggie already owned a gold mine on Schet IX, and it didn’t earn anything like what the banks of Torbek would net Wounded Legion.

“All right, people,” Reggie announced. “We’ve got reason to believe that the Liberty Clan stronghold on Torbek is vulnerable.”

All around the War Room, every pair of eyes was pointed his way. Reggie took that attention and diverted it to the holographic map as he activated it. “Here is our target, not quite on the edge of Liberty Clan space.”

“They’ll see us coming,” Lin said. “That colony on Tupak II is in range of our approach angle.”

“Not if we take the long way around and come at it from here,” Reggie said, pointing a finger into an unassuming blank sector of space. “It’ll add eight minutes to the outbound flight time, but they won’t have any forewarning of our approach until we hit orbit. Anyone here rather get there eight minutes quicker and face ten times the opposition?”

Not a single hand went up. Not even Chase’s as a joke.

“What’re the odds we can keep the daft rock once we’ve got it?” Frank asked. “Sure, maybe it’s the Liberty Gibbets’ version of Wall Street, but what good’s that do us if they take it right back?”

Reggie grinned. He and Chase had already discussed this point before leaving Silent Shuriken. “We’re not going to try. The second we take control of Torbek, we start plundering it. By the time Liberty Clan shows up to reclaim it, we’ll be packed up and off-world, pockets filled with credits.”

June crossed her arms. “So… we’re becoming bank robbers?”

Chase fired finger pistols in the air. “Yeehaw! Stick ‘em up, partner. We’re pullin’ a bank heist.”

June took a moment, then nodded slowly. “I’m down with that.”

“Anyone else have objections?”

Silence. Heads shook.

“Then let’s round up our juggernauts and ride!”

Chapter Thirty-Two

The planet Torbek glittered from orbit like a diamond ring. The console in Vortex was patched into the drop ship’s forward view screen, and Reggie admired the view on their approach.

No alarm had sounded, indicating that Wounded Legion wasn’t under fire yet. Reggie wasn’t ready yet for the types of missions that started under fire even before touching down planetside. Thus far, Choumi’s information was proving accurate. Normally Reggie would have assumed anti-orbital defenses on a planet this valuable if he didn’t have hard intel that said otherwise.

“Prepare for landing,” Reggie warned everyone. “We’re coming in about 5km outside the city. This isn’t just a military compound; there are civilians here. I don’t care whether we win or lose this battle. I want that civilian casualty count at zero. Z-E-R-O. Got it?”

A chorus in the affirmative reassured him with its enthusiasm.

There was no UN here. There was no such thing as a war crime in Armored Souls. But for as far as he could take it, Reggie was going to act as if those civilians were living, breathing people.

The drop ship came in atop an icy plateau overlooking the city’s outskirts. Drifting snow blew in through the loading ramp as soon as it opened.

Reggie let the scouts out first. Alvin shot out of the drop ship like it was rifled, with Harper taking the fore in their fastest juggernaut. Yoink and Chaser—piloted by Delta Platoon’s Chipz—followed close behind, with Artemis taking up the rear of the scout formation. Vortex led the rest of the legion out behind them.

[Primary Objective: Force the Surrender of Torbek to Wounded Legion]

[Secondary Objective: Zero Civilian Casualties]

The terrain just outside the city was awe-inspiring, with towering cliffs rimed in ice, serving as wind breaks for the community that had gathered in an area inhospitable to primitive life.

But on the horizon, the banking city gleamed. Its lights and glassy spires shone like a lighthouse on the icy shores of desolation all around. Star League tech didn’t care about sub-zero temperatures and glacial plains. The heat the city produced caused a fog that served as a visual borderland between the icy claws of death and the cozy warmth of civilization.

“We’re detected,” June reported. “Long-range terrestrial scanners just pinged me.”

“Remember,” Reggie cautioned. “We’re planning on owning this place inside the hour. Don’t break anything that looks expensive. Watch out for artillery. Everyone remember your Class 4 evasive pattern.”

“That the zig-zag?” ZRod asked.

Mapple sang over the radio. “He zigged and he zagged so he couldn’t get bagged.”

“Yes,” Reggie confirmed.

A concussion and a spray of ice from the ground nearby signaled the first of the shells from Torbek artillery. Reggie kept an eye on the mini-map and the division juggernaut status screen. Having 19 juggernauts along, it was getting too crowded to take in all at once. Sooner or later, he was going to have to start delegating to his platoon commanders and only overseeing Alpha Platoon personally.

SwampFox cleared his throat over the radio. “I just took that Sniper 2 perk. How close I gotta be to hit someone now?”

“It’s only a 100m increase in max range,” Chase explained. “Don’t worry. You’re not close yet.”

“Just worry about evasion for now,” Reggie cautioned just as another shell exploded nearby. For a nice, civilized-looking city, it was armed with some brutish, primitive defenses. A place like that ought to have been armed with tower-mounted Anti-Matter Projectors—not that Reggie was complaining.

The next impact rocked Vortex. Reggie’s forward window went white as the spray of ice clouded his view. Even an indirect hit had cost him 12 hit points of damage to his right leg.

“Measured that one,” June said. “416mm shells. A direct hit could potentially take out any of us.”

“Except me,” Frank boasted. Over the radio, a fist thumped on a console. “Old Gremmie here can take it.”

“Fine,” June allowed. “Except for Frank.”

3,400m to firing range. That number would vary for longer range weapons, but 3,400 was the number Reggie was watching. On the mini-map he tried to keep himself centered in the pack of legion juggernauts to maintain his Command Radius 5 boosts for everyone but the scouts. It was a big enough difference that it made noobs like RichyRich into marksmen and allowed the dodging juggernauts to make cuts like an NBA point guard.

Without warning, Compton was gone. His Wyvern, Doombird, must have taken one of those direct hits, because he blinked off the tactical screen without so much as a choked-off scream.

“Wow,” ZRod said with a whistle. “You weren’t joking about that artillery. How the hell is that balanced?”

“No time for complaining,” Reggie said. “Double-time. Let’s get to that city before we take any more losses. Shells are coming in on about an eight-second delay. Just adjust your course before the next one comes. Otherwise, make time for that city wall.”

Walled cities had gone out of style with the rise of gunpowder, but the aesthetic made them irresistible to game designers. There was no logical reason for a city on an ice planet to have a defensive wall, same as there was no reason a space navy shouldn’t just pummel it into submission from orbit. It was all contrived to make the juggernaut the primary form of combat, and as far as that went, Reggie could accept it.

But that meant that the city wasn’t playing by the optimal rules.

Reggie knew his military history. This wasn’t going to be Agincourt. He was aiming more for an Alamo situation, where the outgunned defenders took their shots but ultimately couldn’t hold out against superior firepower massed against them.

“Look sharp,” Reggie ordered. “June, can you get over that wall?”

1,200m to range.

Delta Platoon still had juggernauts using missile builds, and for once, Reggie was glad to see wasted credits flying outbound to soften up their target. Missile impacts along the wall flared red fire before giving way to a cloud of gray-and-white smoke that drifted on the wind.

Artemis took advantage of the smoke screen to leap atop the wall.

TARGET DATA ACQUIRED

Reggie’s map lit with defensive emplacements. He quickly relayed the locations to everyone, but it was the Chi-Ris that SwampFox and Spike piloted that mattered. Their LRM-2s launched volleys aimed at the 416mm artillery emplacements.

The rate of shelling slowed, but they lost Chipz as his Pixie got obliterated by a shell that didn’t even catch him directly.

Shaken by the pounding shells, the ground gave way beneath Wounded Legion. Ice that had covered a yawning chasm cracked and plummeted, taking half the division’s juggernauts along with it.

The scouts were already on the far side. The heavies weren’t that far yet. Reggie, trying to remain within Command Radius of everyone, slammed on his brakes—which amounted to Vortex digging in its heels—just shy of falling in.

Plummeting over 100m, juggernauts winked off the screen rapid-fire as their impacts caused catastrophic damage.

Ellie’s Phoenix, Gothic, used the same equipment loadout as Artemis except with a Mass Driver in place of an enhanced sensor package. That meant she was equipped with Jump Boost. While the other fallen juggernauts were destroyed, she shot out of the icy chasm to land on the far side.

The only other survivor of the fall was ZRod’s Wolverine, Adamant, who was wedged halfway down, holding itself up at a narrow section of the chasm. “A little help, guys?” he pleaded.

“Hold position, ZRod,” Reggie ordered. “Once we secure the area, we’ll lower a winch.”

No one had time for that shit right now. Reggie took stock of his remaining forces.

June, Ellie, Monty, Harper, and Thatchet were across the chasm. Reggie was cut off from the city, along with Frank, Lin, Chase, and Reese. The rest of them were out of commission.

That was a lot of missing firepower.

“Harper, find us an alternate route to the city,” Reggie radioed out to the remaining juggernauts. “Ellie, Monty, get inside the walls and head for the banking sector. Secure the planet’s surrender.” It would be a mission on foot, and those two were his only Commando -build troops.

Yulong fired Jump Boosters and cleared the chasm, not even worrying about overheating with the extended duration burn. The frigid temperatures of Torbek made for an ideal battleground in many ways, but Reggie would have traded the temperatures for sweltering heat and a bridge across.

“Lin, work on opening a hole in that wall,” Reggie ordered, feeling helpless as he was cut off from his main force. “June, take field command of the city operation. Eliminate all the guns.”

“Um, Reg,” June said. “I hate to rain on an already-soggy parade, but we’ve got company.”

Despite the air heaters in Vortex’s cockpit, Reggie’s blood ran cold. “What kind of company.”

“Five drop ships,” June reported. “Looks like a rapid-response team from Liberty Clan.”

Dammit! They’d taken too long. They should have risked the drop ship and landed in range of the artillery. Time for a change of plans. “Abort primary mission,” Reggie radioed to everyone. “Ellie and Monty, try to find and destroy any anti-air and anti-orbital emplacements you can. I’m calling the drop ship. We’ll rendezvous with it at Kilo-November-six-zero-five.”

“That’s inside the city,” June pointed out. “Even if we get it here safely, there’s not enough time to get you around the chasm and inside to—”

“I know that,” Reggie snapped. “Frank, Chase, Reese… we’ve got a new mission.” Even as he spoke, Reggie was tapping in a new player-generated mission for them.

[Bonus Objective: Evacuate Wounded Legion Juggernauts from Torbek 0/6]

“Hey, there are seven of us!” ZRod shouted over the radio. “Don’t forget me down here!”

But Reggie hadn’t forgotten. “Frank, lower ZRod a cable. Adamant’s making this last stand with us.”

A hook and winch was built into most juggernauts medium and up. It was part of the basic equipment package, same as windshield wipers and heated seats. They only rarely came into use during a battle, but today was going to be one of those days.

Reggie watched the horizon and the mini-map at once, splitting his attention. The Wounded Legion drop ship sped by overhead, bound for the city under heavy anti-air fire.

[Secondary Objective FAILED: Zero Civilian Casualties]

“My bad,” Monty radioed out. “Errant missile.”

Reggie didn’t have time to worry about keeping their hands clean. Torbek had turned into a rat trap, and Wounded Legion was caught.

The Liberty Clan drop ships touched down outside artillery range of the city. Apparently they had a higher opinion of Wounded Legion’s chances than Reggie did if they were worried about their own defenses firing on them. If only they knew that half the legion’s juggernauts had fallen down a hole and the rest were split up by the chasm, they’d have landed those drop ships right in the city.

Chase gave Frank a hand, and the two of them managed to drag ZRod up to the surface. Adamant’s legs and back had taken heavy armor damage, but all his weapons were operational.

“All right, boys,” Reggie radioed, creating a temporary Omega Platoon from the five of them left out in the cold. “We don’t go home today. Our only job is to buy the six of our brothers and sisters in the city the time they need to evac.”

“How long’s that gonna take?” Reese asked. For a Demon pilot, he sounded scared.

“Doesn’t matter,” Reggie said. “We’re giving them all we’ve got until we’ve got nothing left.”

“Maybe we could negotiate a surrender,” Reese suggested.

Frank answered before Reggie could think of words to shoot down that ridiculous notion. “Can it, kid. They make movies about fights like this. Win or lose, you go down fighting. Besides, it’s just a game.”

Reggie said it so often, trying to convince himself it was true. But Armored Souls was more than a game to some of them.

“Anyone have decent scanners?” Chase asked. “I can see the fuckers out the window but not on my tactical monitor.”

Reggie waited. The first of the Liberty Clan juggernauts stepped into the outermost band of Vortex’s scanner range.

TARGET DATA SHARED

“Also,” Chase asked, “anyone got any missiles?”

This was the time for long-range weaponry, not for pinching credits. Reggie’s load out in particular was designed for short- to mid-range engagements. This wasn’t going to be his fight to carry.

“Yeah,” Frank growled. “Them.”

The icy night sky streaked with propellant trails illuminated by moonlight. Chase, Reese, and Frank opened fire with Beam Cannons, carving swaths out of the missile swarm. ZRod had begun mirroring Reggie’s Wolverine build, and they both had limited Point-Defense Laser systems that shot down several more each.

But a massive number of missiles made it through despite their efforts.

Vortex rocked. Reggie was thrown around in his seat, only the safety harness preventing him from being dislodged and shaken like a rattle. Alarms blared. Despite his Hardened Systems perk, Reggie had lost scanners and two heat sinks in the barrage.

The Omega Platoon tactical view wasn’t promising.

“I’m on fire!” Reese shouted.

Stop. Drop. Roll. The words flashed in Reggie’s mind from grade-school fire safety drills. On an ice planet, it seemed like sound enough advice. But Reggie was preoccupied. Light juggernauts were flanking on both eastern and western approaches.

Then, Reggie received a holographic broadcast. A familiar, smug face lit with a smile as the call connected.

“Hidey-ho, invaderino,” Freedom Coach Napoleon greeted him merrily. “Looks like you and your friends got separated. But don’t worry. I’ve got this. You’ll all be in the same place soon enough.”

“Fire at will!” Reggie ordered. “Take out the flankers. Don’t let them get to the city.”

It was easier said than done. Frank wasn’t specced out for picking off fast targets. Reggie and ZRod weren’t great at long range. As Plasma Launchers and Beam Cannons spat deadly energy in colorful bursts of red, purple, and blue, the shooting gallery of light juggernauts sped past.

One or two of the Liberty Clan interceptor force tumbled to the ground afire or exploded under direct hits, but more sped right past unscathed.

Reggie watched helplessly as the mini-map flooded with red blips, cresting over his holdout force like rocks in a whitewater river.

“June,” Reggie radioed over to the evacuee force. “ETA to takeoff.”

“Under two minutes,” June said. “We’re waiting on stragglers, then it’s wheels up.” He realized she meant that figuratively. Nothing in this universe seemed to roll on wheels except recreationally.

Finally, Reggie had a medium juggernaut close to a range he could deal with. It was a futile gesture, but the light juggernauts circling the long way around the chasm and Jump Boosting over it were beyond his ability to influence.

[Crow[7] - 70% To Hit]

Reggie squeezed off two shots before trying to improve that aiming number, scoring one hit.

Crow[7] Torso: 43/50

Reggie swallowed, realizing the faint effect he was going to have on the entire Liberty Clan horde before being swept under.

“You might win today,” Reggie replied to Napoleon’s holograph. “But this isn’t over.”

“Oh, I know,” Napoleon replied in all seriousness. “This isn’t over until I say it’s over. And I won’t end this until I’m bored to tears of kicking your pathetic, loser asses. Freedom for everyone!”

Reggie cut off the broadcast before Napoleon got all William Wallace on him.

On the tactical view, Omega Platoon was being torn apart. Yellow and red hues predominated the armor wire frames of his allied juggernauts. On the mini-map, Liberty Clan forces were approaching the city with June and her charges still on the ground.

Then one of the light juggernauts behind Reggie disappeared.

Well, it didn’t vanish—except from the tactical display. Without a mission counting enemy casualties, he had to turn to see what had become of it. It was a smoking ruin 200m from the city wall.

Standing atop the city wall, green paint job ghostly in the moonlight, was Yulong. Lin fired again, taking out another of the light juggernauts at close range with her Anti-Matter Projector. If there was one weakness of that hellacious weapon, it was the brutal thermal load it put on a juggernaut’s systems. In the sub-Arctic temperatures of Torbek, Lin was able to fire at will.

“Lin, fall back and get to the drop ship,” Reggie ordered. “June’s holding up everyone waiting for you.”

“Not for me,” Lin replied. “I’ve already let her know I’m staying. She’s just grabbing Ellie and Monty, and they’ll be out of here. We can hold them.”

Reggie scanned the tactical map once more. Distances that a computer could have measured if Reggie had time to plot calculations instead became gut feels. He watched movements, got an overall impression of the battle, and made a similar assessment to Lin’s.

“Dig in, boys,” Reggie ordered the remainder of his fighting force. “We can do this.”

A Kintaro came at Reggie with a giant battle axe, intent on cleaving him down. Gremlin intercepted it, bowling the smallish heavy juggernaut over and pummeling it before taking enough lasers that it looked like the Death Star firing at Frank.

Gremlin winked out of the platoon view.

Then Adamant followed.

Reggie fired indiscriminately before even locking on with his targeting computer. As the Liberty Clan swarmed in, it was nearly impossible to miss.

Reese’s Demon, Heckfire, toppled over. “Help, I’m—”

But he was gone an instant later.

[Bonus Objective: Evacuate Wounded Legion Juggernauts from Torbek 5/6]

Lin, the would-be sixth evacuee, remained atop the city walls, picking off targets as fast as her Anti-Matter Projector could cycle.

Reggie wasn’t there to see her fall. The Kintaro that Frank had failed to finish off rose from beneath the Tiger’s wreck and planted its axe right through the cockpit window of Vortex.

Chapter Thirty-Three

It was days after the Torbek debacle, and the Green Zone had turned into more of a clubhouse than a base of operations. Reggie and Frank played pool more than they went on missions. Chase popped in and out between stints in Silent Shuriken. Lin and June ran mercenary jobs using Wounded Legion drop ships.

The rest of the faction was much the same. There hadn’t been any full-legion activity since the failed raid. Reggie had stopped checking his in-game messages since he kept getting friendly updates from Freedom Coach Napoleon about the upgrades he was making to Torbek. Members of Bravo, Charlie, and Delta Platoons did their own thing, either as a group or solo.

Hime and Reese hadn’t logged in since they died out on the ice field. Reese had gone so far as to close his account. Reggie had made the effort to read his farewell email. “Too intense” had been the gist of it.

War wasn’t for everyone.

Well, real war wasn’t for anyone. But even fake wars could wear on a guy who wasn’t built to take stress recreationally.

Reggie was up two games to one playing nine-ball with Frank, when he received a push alert that cut through the ambivalence he’d shown his tablet and all the mundane news items there.

Chase was on the couch watching a real-world sitcom. He turned and glared at Reggie as the alert kept blaring while Reggie took his aim. “You gonna check that? If not, at least shut it up.”

With a sigh, Reggie pulled out his tablet.

[Turrim Auream Starport Under Attack by Liberty Clan]

“They’re taking our starport,” Reggie said.

“Aw, come on!” Chase whined. “I just went there last night for Chinese. They have a restaurant there that I swear is a rip-off of the Mandarin Dragon down the street from my apartment.”

Reggie looked around the rec room. “Who’ve we got logged in?”

Chase spread his hands. The kid had a point. Reggie was faction leader. He had all the tools he needed to track down his people.

[Faction > Roster > News (14) > Rewards > Info]

Reggie tapped on the roster link. He sorted by location.

[King - Green Zone - Rec Room]

[June - Sargon IV]

[Chase - Green Zone - Rec Room]

[Dogface - Green Zone - Rec Room]

[Dragonlady - Sargon IV]

[Nordbrook - Offline]

[Harper - Green Zone - Barracks]

[Hime - Offline]

[Ellomancer - The Gant Nebula]

[RichyRich - The Gant Nebula]

[Compton - Offline]

[Thatchet - Green Zone - Hangar]

[ZRod - Green Zone - Hangar]

[Mapple - Green Zone - Storage Closet #2]

[Chipz - Offline]

[SwampFox - Green Zone - Barracks]

[Monty - Green Zone - War Room]

[Spike - Green Zone - Hangar]

Reggie took a quick count. “Looks like we’ve got 10.”

Chase hopped to his feet and saluted. “Let’s go give ‘em hell, sir!”

But that just earned him a scowl from Reggie, who headed off toward the War Room. “We’re not fighting back. We can’t afford the combat losses. Even with insurance, we’ll lose money on repairs and ammo, and we’ll still be out the income from the starport.”

With any luck, Monty, who was already in the War Room, had been working on coming up with a mission that could cover the lost income. Because if Wounded Legion kept taking losses like this, they weren’t going to be able to afford to maintain the Green Zone.

Chapter Thirty-Four

An hour later, Reggie and his two available platoons were in a pitched battle down a mountain pass. There were two approaches to the enemy extraction point, and Wounded Legion forces were divided evenly to defend them.

[Primary Objective: Prevent Enemy Forces from Reaching Extraction Point by 0330]

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 15/35]

Reggie had chosen the mission because the proceeds were sufficient to make up for a day’s loss of Turrim Auream’s income—spread across the participants, at least. Reggie wouldn’t see all that money personally, but the faction would still gain it. Had he realized the type of mission it would be, he might have been inclined to choose them more often.

It was target practice.

It was tank warfare.

Wounded Legion dug in across the mountainous terrain and only exposed enough of their juggernauts’ chassis to get line of fire with their weapons. Given a good scout and some indirect-fire weapons, they might hold out here for days.

Not that anyone besides Reggie—or maybe Frank—would be liable to hang around that long regardless of the payoff.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 16/35]

Reggie checked his mini-map and discovered that an approaching Rhino had perished under withering fire from Left Platoon. Without the benefit of a long time to consider names, this mission’s temporary platoons had just been christened Left and Right.

“Nice shooting, Lefties,” Reggie radioed. “Keep patient. They’ve got to come to us.”

He checked the time: 0314. The enemy force only had sixteen minutes to reach their extraction point, and they still had over a kilometer of mountainous terrain to push through.

Frank, commanding Left Platoon, snarled back. “Pair of swords the size of city buses and I’ve got to point lasers at them like I’m playing with a cat. If I’d wanted hull-down camping trips, I’d have stayed in the army.”

“You rolled over the odometer on the mandatory retirement age,” Reggie pointed out. “No reenlisting for you.”

“No worries, sir,” SwampFox radioed from Frank’s side of the mountain. “I’ll keep him in line. If Gremlin steps out to engage, I’ll take out his kneecaps.”

“Like to see you try!” Frank boasted. “My baby’s got armor like a battleship.”

“I meant back at base,” SwampFox clarified.

“Ease off the chatter,” Reggie warned even though he liked the idea of watching the two settle matters back home. It was impossible to do permanent damage to a character and unlikely to earn either of them a trip to the Star League medical facility. So it sounded like a great way to blow off steam.

Low cash flow or not, maybe it was time to consider that boxing gym for the Green Zone.

On Reggie’s side of the pass, the enemy force looked to have had enough of patience and sniping contests. With neither side making headway, Right Platoon was winning the engagement by default.

Patience was about to pay off.

Two Demons, a Wyvern, and five Kestrels broke cover simultaneously in a coordinated rush.

“Keep down,” Reggie warned. “But fire at will. Shoot to cripple first. Save downed targets for the cleanup phase.”

Taking his own advice, he steadied his aim on one of the Demon’s legs.

[Demon[1] - 33% To Hit]

Inwardly, Reggie swore. Sure, there were scrub trees just below the point where nothing would grow at this altitude that obscured the Demon’s lower half. Sure, he was giving worse gunners a better shot than he had due to the insane bonuses from Command Radius 5. But it was still frustrating as hell to be unable to make precision-targeted shots on such an oversized target.

Reggie fired both Vortex’s Plasma Launchers. Both shots missed, setting dwarf evergreens afire.

The rest of Right Platoon fared better.

Chase cut the leg off the Wyvern before it got to close range. Thatchet and ZRod coordinated an attack on one of the Kestrels and blasted it out of commission.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 17/35]

Mapple danced in and out of cover—literally—as he fired off volleys with an E-M Cannon. Trying to avoid getting distracted himself, Reggie was pretty sure it was the lead role of a Tango played out at juggernaut scale.

“They’re coming at us all in a bunch,” Frank radioed from Left Platoon.

“Permission to do whatever the hell you want,” Reggie replied. He knew that amounted to meeting them head-on, with Gremlin trying some sort of Viking berserker rush. For a guy who claimed to have spent the better part of his military career in the driver’s seat of a tank, Frank seemed to be reliving the glory days of Erik the Red when he sat in Gremlin’s cockpit.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 18/35]

Reggie checked the time: 0319.

He checked the mini-map. Aside from Frank rushing out to meet the desperation push of the enemy force, everything was in order.

Kestrels bore down on Reggie’s platoon. The light juggernauts weren’t as fast as a Chipmunk or a Pixie, but they seemed to be handling the rough, broken terrain like champs.

“Keep on the lights,” Reggie ordered. “Ignore the Demons.”

As he said that, one of the Demons caught Vortex in the cockpit with a Mass Driver shot. Reggie’s heart leaped in his throat. Instantly, he looked to the damage screen. 28/40 on the cockpit armor. Damn, that had felt like a critical for sure, but Hardened Systems must have saved him from the additional damage.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 19/35]

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 20/35]

The updates came, but it was Left Platoon getting the kills. On Reggie’s side of the mountain, the Kestrels were making it hard to nail down killing shots. Clipping legs on something moving that fast just wasn’t practical.

Chase carved into one with his Beam Cannons even as his Plasma Launchers missed another.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 21/35]

The Kestrels were coming fast. Separated on opposing sides of the mountain pass, the enemy juggernauts would soon be past them.

200m

150m

50m

Laser fire and volleys of plasma scorched the targets. No one but Chase was having much success taking them out.

Just as the pack of Kestrels was about to cross their line of fire, Mapple burst into action. He activated his Jump Boost, soaring high into the sky, performing a pirouette at the zenith of his flight. Stabilizing thrusters adjusted his course in mid-air.

“You’re too high!” Chase warned.

But if Mapple processed the warning, he didn’t change his plan because of it. Down, down he plummeted, steering his fall the whole way. He landed his Phoenix, Applejack, with arms out to the sides in the pose of an Olympic gymnast.

One of the Kestrels was crushed flat by a juggernaut three times its mass. The wire-frame for Applejack went deep red in both legs and yellow in the torso from the impact. A pair of floating “no” symbols hovered over the Phoenix’s legs, indicating that internal damage to the joints or actuators had rendered it immobile.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 22/35]

“Ta-da!” Mapple sang.

Over on the Left Platoon side of the mountain, juggernauts from Wounded Legion were taking heavy damage. Lucky for them, most of it was targeting Gremlin, who was designed to shrug it off.

From the middle of the melee, Frank carved a swath through the light juggernauts on that side.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 23/35]

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 24/35]

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 25/35]

Reggie checked the time as he took aim at the remaining three Kestrels who’d made it through his side. 0322. Shit. They had time to get there.

Chase picked off another.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 26/35]

ZRod finally got in a good shot.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 27/35]

Reggie steadied his aim. With the Kestrel making a beeline for the extraction site, he was able to take his time to wait for the reticule to settle.

[Kestrel[6] - 42% To Hit]

[Kestrel[6] - 48% To Hit]

[Kestrel[6] - 54% To Hit]

[Kestrel[6] - 60% To Hit]

The chances stopped improving there, and the Kestrel was getting close to slipping into long range. Reggie squeezed off a pair of shots, and this time, both hit.

For a split second, Kestrel[6] glowed red in the torso, the last of its armor stripped exactly to zero hit points. Then the second shot connected, and it exploded.

“Focus fire on Demon[1],” Reggie ordered. “ZRod, provide cover for Mapple. We’re all going home today.”

“Roger that,” ZRod confirmed, slipping into position, putting Adamant between Applejack and the Demons.

On the mini-map, Frank had stemmed the tide on Left Platoon’s side. The other Valhalla West veterans had been pros, holding down that pass like a beachhead at Normandy. Now that they were getting their feet wet, these guys were going to be great assets to Wounded Legion.

Time ticked down.

0327

0328

0329

0330

[Primary Objective Complete: Prevent Enemy Forces from Reaching Extraction Point by 0330]

“Great work, boys!” Reggie said, catching himself and double-checking that none of the women of Wounded Legion were among his two platoons. He breathed a muted sigh of relief when he remembered that Ellie was off on a mission with her bother, and that June and Lin were slumming together on merc jobs for the night. He was less reassured when he remembered that Hime had dropped off the face of the Star League.

“Clean house. Salvage all we can. Drinks are on me back at the Green Zone.”

If only Reggie hadn’t gotten a notification halfway through the mission that Liberty Clan had finished taking control of Turrim Auream Starport, Reggie could have called the evening a win.

[Mission Successful - 14,800 XP - 8,000Cr]

Chapter Thirty-Five

Reggie arrived back at the Green Zone with a spring in his step. There were missions out there that still had the potential to get his blood pumping without also boiling it. Entering the rec room from the hangar side, he headed straight for the bar and leaned across to fill a pint glass from the tap. He handed it to ZRod, the first in behind him, and began pouring another.

Soon, Left and Right Platoons melted back into just Wounded Legion once more. It was a good feeling to be flexible, powerful, and profitable once again.

They organized a two-on-two game of eight-ball. Someone flipped on an MMA match on the television, live from the real world. They shared tales of the battle they’d just fought.

“And then I was like, ‘whoa, this guy’s not even stopping,’” Harper said. “I mean, up to that point, I was only poking my head out to update the live map. But this Rhino was fixated on me like I was waving a red cape. Thought I was a goner until Spike took out a leg.”

“Hey,” June said as she and Lin entered from the hangar. “You guys went and had some fun without us?”

“Fair’s fair,” Chase said. “It was ladies’ night out before that.”

“Only after Reggie said he wanted to stay home and shoot pool,” Lin reminded them.

Frank shrugged and raised his cue stick as if in toast. “Best of both worlds.”

“Why the change of heart?” June asked with a sly smile. She’d been dogging him to pull himself out of the doldrums ever since the disaster on Torbek.

Reggie couldn’t avoid the topic forever. Sooner or later, someone—probably Chase—was going to look up the faction status and notice a missing space station. “We needed a little income boost since Liberty Clan stole Turrim Auream Starport from us.”

“What!” the sentiment was expressed in many voices and from all directions. Reggie was crushed between them all.

“Why didn’t we go defend it?” ZRod demanded.

“Why isn’t the legion’s notification setting pushing alerts to everyone when that happens?” Lin asked angrily.

June crossed her arms. “We could have bailed on the merc job and come back in time.”

Monty stepped in. “Cut the commander some slack. Need-to-know basis. We got our orders.”

“Not all of us,” Lin countered.

Spike stood beside Monty and Reggie at the center of the storm. “Hey. It’s Reggie’s call. He’s in charge.”

“Maybe we need a vote,” ZRod suggested loudly. “Let someone who cares run this show.”

“Fine by me,” Frank shouted. “I still vote Reggie.”

“I nominate Chase,” ZRod said with a pointed finger.

Chase raised his hands. “Keep me out of this coup. I’m with Reggie. I’d rather have known ahead of time, but I think I had a lot more fun on that mission not knowing it was backfill for our income loss. If we’d have gone guns-a-blazin’ after Liberty Clan on Turrim Auream, we’d be selling furniture back to Star League to pay for ammo and repairs.”

“Exactly!” Reggie said, finally having someone take his side with logic as a weapon. “We can’t counter the force they bring. Freedom Coach Napoleon—”

“Can you stop calling him that?” Frank snapped. “Sounds like one of those self-help fellas on late night TV.”

“Napoleon knows our force projection ability. He’s certain to have bought enough to hammer us down—”

“Like a loose nail,” June said, using Reggie’s line and stealing its impact. “You keep saying that. But if we don’t fight back, they’ll just keep mauling us.”

“If we do fight back, we lose even more ground,” Chase added. “It’s not pretty math, but it’s math. You can hold out against superior numbers with a proper defense, but it’s only a force multiplier, and we don’t have a big enough force to multiply if we want to stop Liberty Clan.”

“Really?” ZRod asked. “That’s the lamest excuse I’ve heard for not even trying. It’s not like we don’t have insurance and respawns.”

Thatchet had been quiet, watching from the sidelines. “Yeah. But the rest of us log out when we die. Reggie’s stuck in here. Maybe that’s why he only fights when he thinks it’s a sure thing.”

ZRod shot a finger at Thatchet as if he’d just spoken to the burning bush. “Exactly. Reggie’s being a pussy.”

That wasn’t it. That wasn’t it at all. Reggie had spent his adult life fighting battles where there was no respawn, where losing resulted in an officer showing up at your parents’ door in mess uniform. He’d lost men in battle. Who was this ZRod character to question his bravery?

“You don’t like it, leave,” Reggie snapped, getting in ZRod’s face and poking a finger into his chest. “I’ve got guys here with more heart in these digital bodies of theirs than you’ll ever have back in that warm, cozy civilian life of yours.”

ZRod slapped away Reggie’s finger and took a swing at him. The blow closed Reggie’s jaw with a crack of teeth. Then it was on.

Reggie lunged for ZRod, but not before Frank tackled him to the ground. As Reggie tried to pull Frank aside to do his own dirty work, Thatchet sucker-punched him from behind.

The whole brawl only lasted a minute or two, by which time Chase was able to toss the participants aside, too exhausted to resist.

“That’s it,” Reggie said, collapsing back against the bar for support. “Anyone who wants out, just go. We’ve got a ship taking on water. The last thing we need is dead weight who won’t bail.”

“You’re the one to talk,” ZRod said. “All you’re doing is drilling holes to let the water out.” He gestured in the air, tapping at an interface screen unseen by the rest of them.

Then, he vanished.

[Player Quit Wounded Legion - ZRod]

“Wow,” Lin said. “He really just pussied out right in front of everyone.”

Reggie scanned the rec room. “Anyone else? I’m done babysitting here. If you’re not going to soldier up, don’t let your ass hit you on the way out.”

[Player Quit Wounded Legion - Thatchet]

As Reggie panted for breath, he saw that no one else seemed inclined to quit right now. That might change when the other offline and on-mission players found out what had happened.

For now, Reggie needed a beer.

“Don’t worry,” he assured everyone. “We’ve lost numbers, but we’ll train up and come out of this tighter and leaner.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

The training mission was two teams of Wounded Legion juggernauts. Reggie didn’t have a lot of cash to throw at the winners, so the game was mainly for bragging rights and tactical exercise.

[Primary Objective: Destroy Blue Team Juggernauts 0/5]

[Second Victory Condition: Hold City Center 10 Minutes]

The juggernauts weren’t real. They weren’t even the same kind of fake as the rest of the game universe. No. This was a simulation inside a simulation, which twisted Reggie’s mind the longer he thought about it.

Reggie’s Red Team included Frank and Lin, plus newcomers Monty and SwampFox. Monty had his Ferret named Tallyho and SwampFox a Chi-Ri called SwampThing. Reggie promised himself that part of integrating the new guys would be remembering all their juggernaut names.

Facing off against them were Chase, June, Chipz, Spike, and Harper of the Blue Team, with Chase acting as platoon leader.

This was it, now. All of Wounded Legion, back down to just 10 members. It had hurt losing Ellie, who had shown real promise, and the decision to cut Mapple loose was based more on overall flakiness than disloyalty, but for the first time since expanding Wounded Legion, he felt good about everyone he was bringing into battle.

Their simulated battlefield was a historic city with Earth-style apartments and roads, right where scattered suburban hobby farms gave way to a geometrically laid out city that looked like a spoked wheel from an aerial view.

“Keep a sharp lookout,” Reggie warned. “We’re the firepower team, not the scouting team here.”

“I’ll take that as a challenge,” Monty boasted, piloting Red Team’s only light juggernaut. “I updated my build for the simulation to try out that scanner package June runs.”

“How’s the Ferret handling under the added weight?” SwampFox asked. “Thought June got away with it because she’s in a bigger jug.”

Reggie waited, and with Chase off on another platoon frequency, there was no frat-boy chuckle at the mention of June’s jugs. There was never any thought of cutting Chase loose—he was too damned good at Armored Souls—but he made keeping things on a professional level a lot more challenging. Chase needed to be shot at—preferably a lot—before he took the game seriously.

“It’s slower, but I’m loving the vision and tactical intel gathering. I’m used to getting the light version of this stuff uploaded to me, but now I’m starting to get spoiled with the details.”

“Just watch out for Artemis,” Reggie warned. “If you two spot one another, it’s time to high-tail it back to the rest of us. Now, the rest of you, head for Foxtrot-one-zero.”

“Straight at ‘em,” Frank said. “Nice.”

“Straight at the objective,” Reggie said. “Blue is going to be trying to outmaneuver us, separate us, pick us apart. We need to get to the city center and put them on a clock to come get us. Then we can hunker down and use the buildings as cover when they try to oust us.”

“What if they try the same?” Lin asked. “They’re faster. They can get there first.”

“They’ll want to stay mobile. Monty’s going to watch for them to ambush us before we can get into position. If they can isolate us, their maneuvering advantage will give them an edge.”

“Roger that,” SwampFox radioed. “Want me to get out ahead and start the timer?”

“Negative,” Reggie replied immediately. “That’s exactly what I mean. I don’t want anyone but Monty getting more than 300m from the rest of the team. Frank and Lin are our big guns. We want to turn a phone booth into a mosh pit. Rushing in one at a time is for extras in a kung fu movie.”

“You got it, chief,” SwampFox replied.

Reggie watched his mini-map. There was no sign of Blue Team. What was Chase up to? This was a training exercise, not an opportunity to show off fancy tactical tricks to prove how clever he was. Simple basics, Reggie had told him. Stuff everyone can use. Get everyone used to working with their platoon mates.

The buildings loomed just ahead. Vortex casually crushed a terrestrial vehicle that looked suspiciously like a Chevy Caprice, even though this wasn’t Earth, then walked through a chain link fence that clung to his shins for a few steps before disentangling.

“Reminds me of Germany, back in the big one,” Frank commented as they reached the city limits. “Got that grimy, old-world charm.”

Monty grunted. “Me. I’ve only ever been stationed in deserts. Wouldn’t mind one of those cushy European assignments.”

Reggie held his tongue but smiled.

“Was a little hairier when I was there,” Frank replied. “What with Mustache MacGoo still running things and half the world’s armies marching up every street.”

“Me and Swampy got a bet going,” Monty said. “I say there’s no way you’re that old. That you’re making this shit up.”

“I’m mostly made of paper and oatmeal these days,” Frank retorted. “But back in my day, we drove tanks with a pair of long sticks, and they handled like turds on a dry lawn. I’m deaf in one ear from a German artillery shell—can’t remember which because these days I’m damn near deaf in both. I fought in Korea and Nam. Life caught me at just the right age to get sucked into all the big wars before the Cold War turned the world into a bunch of nervous Nellies afraid of getting microwaved from the sky. My memory might not be what it used to be but only because I’ve filled it up with more living than the four of you put together, I reckon.”

TARGET DATA ACQUIRED

The mini-map lit as three of the Blue Team’s juggernauts had been spotted.

“Got ‘em,” Monty replied. Then, a beat later, “Oh, shit!”

Reggie watched Tallyho’s armor light up with first yellow, then red damage indications before he took refuge behind an apartment on the outer limits of town.

“Nice work getting out of there,” Reggie said. “Everyone fall back into the city. Lin, keep them honest.”

Honesty was the best policy, but enforcing it with a Gunnery L18 pilot aiming an Anti-Matter Projector was even better.

Artemis was one of the three Monty had spotted, along with Alvin and Chaser.

Reggie scowled. He was going to have to chat with Chipz about his Pixie’s name; Chaser was too close to Chase for his liking.

Where Chase and Spike had ended up was anyone’s guess. They were Blue Team’s heavy hitters—such as they were—but despite finding three of their juggernauts out in the C-24 region, the remaining two were nowhere in sight.

[City Center Capture in Progress]

A timer appeared on Reggie’s heads-up display, counting down from 10 minutes.

“Well, that answers that,” Lin said. “You want me to hold them off out here or join you in the city?”

“Keep them pinned in the ‘burbs,” Reggie ordered. “Get to the best cover you can find, and make them pay for coming near you.”

“Roger that,” Lin replied.

“Hey, what outfit were you with, anyway?” Monty asked. “Never did get to hear.”

“I’m a… civilian,” Lin replied sheepishly. “I host a daily gaming stream.”

“Hey,” Monty said reassuringly. “The choice to serve or not serve is your privilege as an American.”

“Um, technically… I’m Chinese,” Lin replied. “Can we maybe table this until after the battle?”

Reggie watched the mini-map, wondering what the trap was. Chase was no fool. Far from it; Chase prided himself on cleverness at the expense of practicality at times. There had been occasions where Reggie had the impression Chase would rather lose brilliantly than win ugly. “Hold up, everyone. Don’t get within sight of the capture zone. Cut north at Foxtrot-one-three. Take the next right, then come out at Bravo-one-five.”

“We’re not taking out the guy capturing the city?” SwampFox asked, taking SwampThing on a swerving turn that nearly overbalanced the Chi-Ri.

“No,” Reggie said. “That’s the trap. Lin, on my mark, fall back and get out of sight in the city limits. The rest of you, double-time it.”

Red Team was running a wheel maneuver. Just as Reggie and the others were about to emerge from the city at B-15, he signaled Lin to pull back with Yulong.

Artemis, Alvin, and Chase pursued Yulong once the threat of her Anti-Matter Projector was removed.

They were sitting ducks as Vortex, SwampThing, and Tallyho opened fire from a wide-open flank. The only flaw in the plan was that Gremlin was too slow to arrive before the three Blue Team juggernauts took cover behind a row of stone houses.

“Lin, time to double back,” Reggie ordered. “They’re all yours. Frank, watch out behind us.”

In the scramble to recover from his trap being baited, Chase and Spike came around a corner to take Reggie’s detachment from behind and ran smack dab into a pair of boxcar-sized swords and a Tiger-class heavy juggernaut pilot who knew how to use them.

Reggie split his forces, sending Monty and SwampFox to chase the Blue Team in the suburbs out of cover while he went to back up Frank and pick off whichever of the two Blue Teamers tried to get around behind him.

It was over in no time from there. Yulong strode confidently in, knowing her allies had her covered. Frank mauled Diablo as Spike tried without luck to maneuver Nails into position to lend aid with Vortex dumping plasma into his rear armor.

There was hardly time to register the mission updates as the Blue Team, out-positioned and outmaneuvered, was torn apart.

[Primary Objective: Destroy Blue Team Juggernauts 0/5]

“Woo!” SwampFox whooped. “That’s how it’s done!”

“Little lady,” Monty said. “Don’t matter where you’re from. You’re one of us.”

“Thanks,” Lin said quietly over the simulator’s radio. “Never been around many military guys before Armored Souls, and in game it’s hard to tell who’s real and who’s hamming it up. You boys are all right.”

“Must be hell playing on China time,” Monty mentioned offhandedly. “You work a night shift or something?”

“No, I’m a streamer, remember?” Lin said. “And I’ve lived in the US since I was five. Um, Cali accent? Hello? I didn’t get that in Macao. I just haven’t gotten naturalized or anything. My older brother did.”

“It’s not a requirement for Wounded Legion,” Reggie pointed out before this became a recruitment effort. Then it occurred to him. He could hear it in Lin’s voice. That veneer of plastic cynicism and abrasiveness she wore like a raincoat had slipped away. Monty had made a personal connection with her in a way that Reggie had never even attempted. He’d alienated so many of their recruits by keeping them at arm’s length; he vowed then and there not to continue that mistake. “But if you’re ever interested, we’d be welcome to have you.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

In the early hours of the morning, between the end of the simulated run and the morning dawn that would call the healthy, able-bodied players back to their day jobs, it was movie night in the Green Zone. What they watched didn’t matter. Nachos and beer went with anything, and Armored Souls was able to stream the latest digital releases for free since Reggie’s account had every bell and whistle enabled.

They laughed and drank throughout the movie, trading good-natured jibes over one another’s performances in the training mission.

It was a relief. After losing half his troops to infighting and the looming threat of Liberty Clan over the future of Wounded Legion, it felt good to cut loose and just enjoy the world for a while.

And when everyone parted ways as dawn approached, Reggie stayed up a little longer.

He had planning to do for Wounded Legion’s next conquest.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

It was two days after movie night, and Reggie had selected the first target of Wounded Legion’s rebuilding effort.

Ten juggernauts lined the cargo hold of the drop ship, each secured in place and neatly lined up. The pilots had nothing but time on their hands as they trekked across a swath of galaxy that few small factions would have bothered with. Half an hour each way just in transit, it was far and away the longest Reggie had ever ventured for a mission.

And that was the point.

The Dundee Proving Ground was a Corpex Munitions SRM factory planet. They produced small batches of experimental missiles and tested them on a crater-pocked missile range just outside the factory campus.

“So I came out of the latrine and everyone was standing there with their cell phone cameras, clicking pictures,” Monty said, finishing up his turn at storytelling. “God. I couldn’t go online for weeks without seeing that picture pop up in my feeds.”

“How about you, Chase?” Reggie asked. “What’s your most embarrassing work story?”

Chase hemmed and hawed for a moment. “I dunno, guys. I haven’t even finished grad school yet. I don’t know if I can compete with infantry hazing.”

“C’mon, Chase,” Lin said. “I played along.”

“Yours involved a boob slip on stream,” Chase countered.

“Is yours any worse than that?” Lin shot back.

Chase sighed. “Fine. OK. So I was an undergrad at age 14. Off to college. Working for peanuts at the campus computer lab. Hell, my parents had to sign a form just for me to work at all. So this girl comes in, not long before closing, totally desperate. Her and three friends. Well, she recognizes me from Comp-Sci 102 class and begs me for help. Virus. Unrecoverable program. Long story short, she’s willing to put out for help passing this assignment. I was a big kid, grew my scruffy little beard out… she never thought twice about my age. Then one of the other lab monitors comes over and says, loud enough for her friends and half the lab to hear, ‘Anything you do to him is a felony.’”

The entire drop ship roared with laughter over the radios.

“That’s a whole new level of cock-blocking,” Lin remarked once her giggling died down.

“Laugh it up,” Chase said. “But you think dating was hard in high school? Try being college jailbait.”

“You’re last, Reggie,” June said. “The rest of us all showed ours. What’ve you got?”

Reggie sighed. He’d hoped they would arrive before his turn. Frank alone ought to have taken up half the trip with his shaggy-dog anecdotes. He questioned whether undercutting his air of authority was the best way to bring the team together.

No. That was the thinking that had kept recruits at arm’s length and cost him their loyalty. Better to suck it up and tell his story.

“Back when she was still getting used to being a military wife, my ex sent me off on a fishing trip with some of the guys from my unit. Packed me a bag lunch. Sandwich was tuna, and she couldn’t wrap her head around the idea I didn’t like tuna in a sandwich. So I did the grade-school thing and traded lunches.”

“Wow. You rebel, you,” Chase said dryly.

“Shut up,” Reggie griped. “The embarrassing part was that my wife had written a note on the napkin. I didn’t catch on until the other guys were passing it around, holding back from busting a gut. Turns out, wives don’t write ‘have a nice day, love, Mom’ on their notes. Davis was asking around to see if inheriting my lunch got him a free pass for all the stuff Daisy promised to do when I got home.”

“Ouch,” Lin said.

There were commiserations all around. Reggie’s story was filed away along with everyone else’s—just one of the guys.

Their arrival at the Dundee Proving Ground came as a relief. “On the ground in two. Let’s rock this missile fest. No casualties. No freelancing. Stick to the plan and we’ll have ourselves a little private arsenal.”

[Primary Objective: Force the Surrender of Dundee Proving Ground to Wounded Legion]

[Secondary Objective: Shoot Down Incoming Missiles 0/?????]

“How hard is it hitting those things?” SwampFox asked as they tromped down the cargo ramp and into the badlands of the Dundee Proving Ground. “I’m more used to firing them.”

“It takes a little practice,” Chase said. “But you’ll get the hang of it.”

Everyone had refit their juggernauts with Point-Defense Lasers and at least one Beam Cannon if they weren’t already packing. Dundee Proving Ground was defended primarily by their own major export: short-range missiles.

“Not sure I like how many question marks are in that mission objective,” Frank grumbled. “Could be millions of the bloody things.”

“Under a hundred thousand,” Chase said. “The max is 99,999, but it could also be as few as 10,000.”

“Comforting,” Frank muttered.

“Shouldn’t have to face them all,” Reggie said as Vortex lumbered across the badlands. “We don’t plan on waiting until they run out of ammo.”

The distance to target ticked down.

1,500m

1,300m

900m…

Reggie tensed. With a base max range of 600m, there was almost guaranteed to be other factors in play at a specialty munitions factory. Advanced targeting systems, NPCs with perks, or even custom missile designs with extended range were all options.

“Look sharp,” Reggie warned.

This was the first mission he could remember with Frank running point. The hulking mass of Gremlin was up front to take the brunt of indiscriminate fire from the base and shield the rest of the legion from as much damage as possible.

800m

The sky erupted. It was like watching a movie where medieval archers launched volleys of arrows so thick that the heavens resembled a coarse blanket of arrow shafts. Except that each of these carried an explosive charge and a simple guidance system aiming it for Reggie and his troops.

“Fire!”

Lasers fired out in all directions and colors as Beam Cannon designs competed for kill counts. It looked as if the roadies for Pink Floyd, AC/DC, and KISS had a contest with their laser light shows without music.

The mission objective jumped wildly.

[Secondary Objective: Shoot Down Incoming Missiles 12/?????]

[Secondary Objective: Shoot Down Incoming Missiles 35/?????]

[Secondary Objective: Shoot Down Incoming Missiles 117/?????]

Missiles got through the screen due to sheer numbers and because the smoke and debris for so many of their brethren created visibility problems for the juggernauts.

Vortex shook and rumbled with impacts, but Reggie couldn’t afford to tear his eyes from the firing range overhead to check for damage. His freshly swapped-in Beam Cannon-Ms and Point Defense Lasers were all still responding, and Vortex kept pushing forward, so there was only so bad things could get.

“This is nuts!” Chipz commented. “I freakin’ love it!”

“How do you guys live with these teensy little weapons?” Lin asked, using something smaller than an Anti-Matter Projector for the first time since Reggie had known her.

500m

This wasn’t so much a walk in the park as a sprint through a hailstorm, but the factory defense perimeter was approaching quickly. All they had to do was make it inside and get to the command center. Intel reports showed no juggernauts on hand to defend, so from that point, nothing could go wrong.

Shit, Reggie swore without letting it sneak out over the radio. He couldn’t believe how badly that thought was tempting fate. There was plenty that could go wrong.

Wounded Legion was a million miles from home—technically, a lot farther, considering the gobbledygook measurements in Armored Souls for planetary distances. They were far from Liberty Clan territory, but if there was still a mole, Freedom Coach Napoleon could be here any minute to ambush them and take the planet for himself. Dundee Proving Ground was also near enough to two local factions that might have been fine with an independent world in their attic but less OK with a small faction owning it. If they were paying attention to the galactic news notifications, they might show up and cause similar trouble for Reggie.

No. There was plenty that could still go wrong. Reggie just had to be ready for anything.

[Secondary Objective: Shoot Down Incoming Missiles 655/?????]

[Secondary Objective: Shoot Down Incoming Missiles 720/?????]

250m to the factory.

“Anyone ever walk up a down escalator?” Chase asked. “Call me crazy, but this sort of reminds me of that.”

“Keep moving,” Reggie ordered. “Save the clever stories for the rec room.”

[Secondary Objective: Shoot Down Incoming Missiles 831/?????]

[Secondary Objective: Shoot Down Incoming Missiles 909/?????]

150m

“I can’t even see where I’m going,” Frank complained.

“The base didn’t move,” Reggie said. “If you slam into a wall, we’re there.”

Gremlin pulled out its swords and used one like a blind person’s walking cane.

The missile impacts came faster as more made it through the increasingly speculative aim of Wounded Legion. Night had fallen in full daylight as thick smoke wafted everywhere.

50m

The missiles petered out. They were too close. The factory was going to have to worry about friendly fire as Frank slammed his way through a perimeter wall and entered the factory campus.

[Secondary Objective: Shoot Down Incoming Missiles 1,129/?????]

The missile count stopped there.

Now to find the person in charge.

An incoming broadcast caught Reggie by surprise. There was no video, but the voice over the scratchy radio signal oozed authority. “I am Director Yun Kim of Corpex Munitions. What are your terms?”

“Unconditional surrender to Wounded Legion,” Reggie replied. “All your people are safe and work for us now.”

“Agreed,” Director Kim replied.

[Primary Objective Complete: Force the Surrender of Dundee Proving Ground to Wounded Legion]

“Wow!” Chase cheered. “Some days we can get it easy.”

“Easy?” Lin said. “I just spent twenty minutes shooting down the rain.”

“A win’s a win,” Reggie said. “And with this win, we’re back in business.”

“The missile business, by the sound of it,” Monty observed.

[Mission Successful - 7,700 XP - 18,000Cr]

It felt odd paying himself credits, but if Reggie was a part of the mission, he had to get what he gave everyone else. Even if it left him on the verge of broke, the rest of them deserved the payday.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

One of the great features of Dundee Proving Ground turned out to be that it had a repair facility. Wounded Legion turned off missile production and diverted the manufacturing teams to mechanic duty to get their juggernauts all back up and running at full power. And, due to the magic of Armored Souls’ hangar inventory system, they were all able to re-equip them normal weapons loadouts despite having left their standard weaponry back in the Green Zone.

And so, with a long drop ship ride staring them in the face and half a night left to play before work stole most of his manpower, Reggie picked a planet along their return route and set up a quick conquest mission.

Calgon was a proper colony world. They didn’t specialize in anything particularly interesting. Their world wasn’t rich in valuable minerals. None of the megacorps had satellite facilities there. Calgon had farming, light industry, and a little commercial infrastructure.

What they had was population.

Thus far, Wounded Legion’s civilian population was tiny. That hadn’t mattered much early on, but as Reggie intended for them to grow, having a civilian base would give them opportunities to recruit cheaper and more loyal NPCs over a wider variety of professions. In fact, once they took ownership, one of his first plans was to hire some guards for the factory they’d just conquered on Dundee.

“All right, everyone,” Reggie said as the drop ship prepared for its second delivery of the night. “Same rules as last civilian-heavy mission. Bonus credits if we take over without causing mayhem.”

“Got it,” Chase said. “May-not-hem.”

Reggie tapped the button to send out the player-generated mission for this capture.

[Primary Objective: Force the Surrender of Calgon to Wounded Legion]

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 0/??]

[Secondary Objective: Zero Civilian Casualties]

The drop ship shuddered.

“What was that?” SwampFox asked nervously.

“Landing under fire,” Chase said. “It’s OK. I checked the colony defenses. There should be no way they can shoot us down before we land.”

“Not good for a quick escape if this goes goldfish up,” Frank observed.

“Landing target is a municipal park,” Reggie said. “We want to get a surrender with minimal impact to the population. That means not mowing down everything in our path on the way in. Capital city. Closest spot it could find to their colony hall.”

“Wow. I just looked this place up,” Lin radioed across the cargo bay. “How’d a place this nice end up free?”

“I vaguely remember it being part of the Asskick Collective,” Reggie replied, trying not to make it sound like he spent hours on end studying the galactic map and tracking faction holdings. “They disbanded last night.”

“Oh, yeah,” Chase said. “Saw some of the drama spill onto the forums. Bunch of cheaters. Faction head got himself banned for trying to access server data.”

“Their loss is going to be our gain,” Reggie said as the drop ship thudded to the ground.

Bright sunshine streamed in, and their first view of the planetary surface was a well-maintained grassy lawn. The drop ship’s restraints released all at once, and the scouts poured down the gang ramp.

TARGET DATA ACQUIRED

The mini-map lit like a game of Asteroids with enemies closing in from all directions.

“Yulong, use the drop ship as cover and keep them from taking it out,” Reggie said. “I want Gremlin acting like a snow plow down Hobarth Street.”

“What ‘n a what, now?” Frank spluttered.

“Check your map,” Reggie said. “Zoom in twice and you’ll see the street name.”

“I’ll be damned,” Frank said. “Ain’t that a thing.”

“Diablo, Spike, left and right flanks, respectively,” Reggie ordered. “We’re making a beeline for their government center. Artemis and Alvin, spot targets for Yulong. Everyone else, follow Gremlin. I expect them to reinforce the city center when they figure out where we’re headed.”

The wedge formation charged down Hobarth Street at Gremlin’s max speed—which wasn’t much of a charge for anyone but Frank. Reggie tried to remind himself that any juggernauts they didn’t kill would be under his control as faction-bound NPCs soon. Wipe out Calgon’s defenses and they’d be ripe for reconquest. As it stood, he was already hoping to split those defenses to reinforce Dundee.

[Secondary Objective FAILED: Zero Civilian Casualties]

“Dude!” Chase exclaimed as the message popped up for everyone.

“The delivery van was right in my path,” Frank argued. “Can’t blame this thing for handling like a semi truck on ice skates.”

Reggie sighed. So long as it was a single civilian vehicle, he could live with the fallout. NPC morale was a finicky thing to begin with. Rebellions were for planetary dictators who enslaved populations and kept harems of captured civilians. But making the citizens of Calgon feel unsafe around Wounded Legion could potentially cancel out morale boosts to production and income down the line.

“That’s not license to start wrecking houses, people,” Reggie reminded everyone. “We’ve got to protect these people, and I’m willing to start while they’re still aligned with the opposition.”

No sooner had the chorus of acknowledgments died down when the warmth of their reassurances ran cold in Reggie’s belly. A notification popped up. Thanks to Reggie adjusting the faction push notification thresholds, everyone else would be seeing it at the same time as him.

[Dundee Proving Ground Under Attack by Liberty Clan]

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Chase said.

“Do we head back?” June asked.

“Negative,” Reggie said. “We’re committed here. We take Calgon, then reassess our situation.”

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 1/??]

“Don’t worry,” Lin said. “I’m kneecapping when I can, but that little guy was too quick to aim at his legs.”

“Keep chugging, Frank,” Reggie ordered.

The colony hall was a white stone building with columns and a gold-capped dome. This was looking like clear sailing.

Then, from around either corner of the colony hall, a pair of Shinigamis poked out bearing Mass Drivers.

Frank veered instantly for the one on the right. “I got this side!”

The one on the left took aim at Reggie, and he winced in anticipation of the impact. Vortex rocked back under the blow as a slug slammed into its head. A crack snaked along the glass of the forward window. The juggernaut’s head armor was down to 28/40 after the first impact.

Gremlin took a blow that barely registered on its massive torso armor, not even leaving the pristine green color of intact armor.

“Let Frank have that one. The rest of you circle wide left,” Reggie ordered.

“What about you?” Chase asked, noticing that Reggie wasn’t swerving aside.

“Someone’s got to draw this thing’s fire.”

Reggie was exposed. The colony hall was surrounded by a pleasant pedestrian mall lined with footpaths and human-scale monuments that were more a tripping hazard than potential cover.

Shinigami[1] took aim at Reggie again, and rather than fire back, he raised Vortex’s left arm to shield its head. The Mass Driver shot wrenched the arm, and Reggie caught the brief flash on the status panel that indicated Hardened Systems had prevented an actuator failure.

By now, though, the rest of the detachment was flanking Shinigami[1]’s position. Beam Cannon-S fire mixed with Minigun and Plasma Cannon blasts. Woodpecker shots chipped away at armor all over the heavy juggernaut defending the colony hall.

Vortex closed in, hugging the building rather than coming around to face the Shinigami head on. When Shinigami[1] declined to follow him around and come completely out of cover, Reggie marched up the steps in Vortex, hitting the cockpit controls to let him out. “Monty, with me!” was his final order before relinquishing his command seat.

Tallyho switched up and cut across Shinigami[1]’s line of fire. As Reggie climbed down Vortex’s leg, Monty popped out of the Ferret’s cockpit and leaped into open air. Thrusters built into his boots flared to life and slowed his descent just before Reggie reached the ground.

“Nice move,” Reggie said with an impressed whistle. “When did you pick those up?”

“Saw it on one of the competition feeds,” Monty replied. “Grabbed ‘em before the last mission but haven’t had a chance to use ‘em till now.”

“Lead the way,” Reggie said. “We’ve got to find whoever’s in charge and convince them to stand down.”

“Yes, sir!”

The front doors were glass and steel with Calgon Colony logos etched into the surface. They were locked, but glass didn’t get on well with explosives, and so Reggie and Monty made it inside in short order.

Guards poured out of side hallways, but Monty mowed them down as fast as they appeared. Reggie felt pangs of guilt for the unthinkingly loyal NPCs who were only doing their jobs.

Reggie fired shots as he went, but with a Shooting skill of 2, he was mostly just laying cover fire for Monty, who was somewhere between John Wick and Detective Billy Rosewood in terms of shot efficiency.

They passed an office door, and Monty kicked it in. A fussy little man in a suit and glasses cowered behind a desk. Monty dragged him out by his collar. “Where’s the governor? Who’s in charge of this planet?”

Reggie lingered by the door, watching for reinforcements.

“Paul Price,” the bureaucrat said. “Right hallway. Last door.”

“Nice to meet you… Jeff,” Reggie said, reading the man’s desk nameplate as Monty shoved him into his chair. “I’m sure you’ll like working for Wounded Legion.”

The pair made their way to the office Jeff had described, blasting through the door lock. Inside was a modestly appointed office in wood trim with a Star League banner on the wall behind the desk and its occupant.

“My terms are simple,” Governor Paul Price said, sitting calmly with his hands clasped atop the desk’s glossy black surface. “I will agree to protectorate status. We will give Wounded Legion tribute in the amount of—”

“Unconditional surrender,” Reggie cut in, aware that every moment he delayed in listening to a proposal he wouldn’t accept was just more damage to Calgon Colony. He aimed his blaster pistol at Governor Price’s head, though he kept his finger resting on the trigger guard.

“Tribute in the amount of 12,000Cr per day in exchange for Wounded Legion’s pledge of protection from all other aggressors,” Price finished.

Monty came around the far side of the desk and pointed his weapon at the governor’s head as well. The key difference was that Monty’s finger was resting lightly on the trigger itself.

“In light of the current circumstances,” Price said without missing a beat or showing a drop of sweat. “I offer Calgon’s unconditional surrender to Wounded Legion.”

[Primary Objective Complete: Force the Surrender of Calgon to Wounded Legion]

[Mission Successful - 10,100 XP - 15,000Cr]

Instantly, the Star League banner on the far wall shifted, turning into the logo that June and Lin had come up with—a cracked army helmet on a khaki green background, with “WOUNDED LEGION” in the spray-painted font that the grunts in supply marked on crates.

About the time Reggie started feeling smug and successful as he walked back to where he’d parked Vortex, the follow-up notification appeared to him.

[Dundee Proving Ground Captured by Liberty Clan]

“We got time to do anything about that?” Chase radioed as soon as Reggie was buckled into the cockpit of Vortex.

All along the streets of Calgon, subtle changes marked the shift in ownership. Star League Coffee Shop had become Wounded Legion Coffee Shop. The flags at the park flew the Wounded Legion banner. Municipal buildings came in khaki green trim instead of red.

“Yeah,” Reggie said. “But we’re not going back to Dundee tonight. I’ve got a different plan for how to deal with Liberty Clan and Freedom Coach Napoleon.”

Chapter Forty

“You want what?” Freedom Coach Napoleon asked incredulously from the screen in Reggie’s quarters back at the Green Zone.

“Peace deal,” Reggie said. “Simple concept. Smart guy like you oughta think of a way to come out ahead. All I’m looking for is a way to put this conflict behind us and move forward.”

The words came out of the diplomatic corp playbook. Reggie had never been a diplomat, been assigned to guard diplomats, or taken so much as a “here’s what not to say to piss off foreign leaders” course. Closest he’d come to dealing with VIPs not of his own chain of command was being part of a convoy once and protecting a caravan of limos.

Still, this wasn’t rocket science. It happened on TV all the time.

“Lemme get this straight,” Napoleon said slowly, as if figuring out the English language as he went along. “You’re getting your ass served to you on a silver platter at my whim. I’m making a profit on every world you lose to us. And you think… what? That I’m going to just back off because you asked nicely?”

“I haven’t been asking nicely,” Reggie said. “But if it would help, sure. Napoleon, I would appreciate it if you’d negotiate a truce with Wounded Legion. Please, would you sit down with me and hammer out some terms?”

“Hammers don’t negotiate with nails,” Napoleon said with a sneer. “Listen here, you little piss ant. You’re going to keep losing planets, starports, space stations, asteroid mines, and anything else you plan on adding to your little empire. And if you decide to stop conquering stuff for me to take from you, I’m just going to mop up the last few holdings you have outside your base.”

“Surely, there has to be something that could make it worth your time to not just keep coming after Wounded Legion,” Reggie argued, reminding himself that better men than him had taken abuse from worse guys than Napoleon—the Freedom Coach, not the French emperor—in the name of peace.

Napoleon huffed a sigh. “You know, there are rumors that Patch 1.0.9 might introduce base raiding. If that goes live, we are so coming to stomp your little clubhouse flat. Your ass is going to have a slot in it shaped just like my foot from me kicking it so many times. You will be a glorious part of the galaxy’s liberation!”

Reggie had been horrified at the prospect of being relegated to the dregs of HQ-only factions. There were plenty of them out there, little more than mercenary platoons with fancy business cards. But the idea that Valhalla West might allow the capture of faction bases fixed Reggie with an existential dread he wasn’t willing to deal with on a video conference.

He switched off the call.

“What an asshole,” Reggie said with a slow shake of his head.

Chapter Forty-One

Reggie’s beer never grew too warm. It wasn’t programmed to. Back in real life, if he sat long enough with the same bottle clutched loosely in his grasp, it would reach room temperature. Somehow, Armored Souls robbed him of sinking into that depth of wallowing.

The lights in the rec room were off. Reggie’s vigil for his own faction had begun before Liberty Clan had even launched their final offensive. His thoughts drifted to other leaders who had sat at the heart of their kingdoms as the trumpets of their enemies grew louder and closer, heralding the ends of their varied reins.

Without warning, the lights flicked on. “The hell you doing here in the dark?” Frank asked. He stalked over to the rack of pool cues and picked up his accustomed weapon for billiards. “You up for a game, or you got a case of the weep-eye I oughta watch out for.”

“Might as well,” Reggie said. “Gonna be all we can do, soon enough.”

“Weep-eye it is, then,” Frank said as he assembled a rack for nine-ball. “Go on. Get it out of your system. I don’t plan on putting up with this crap all night. Barf up them girly feeling and let’s shoot some pool.”

When he put it like that, Reggie came close to blowing off the game. Instead, he took a swallow of beer and figured: what the hell.

“It’s Liberty Clan,” Reggie said.

“You talked to Mr. Boy Band over there, didn’t you?” Frank asked with a squint.

Reggie circled to the head of the table and made a break. He got in the three-ball, so he came around to the side and lined up another shot. “Freedom Coach Napoleon,” he confirmed.

“Rotten little chicken-shit,” Frank said with a sneer. “What’d he want?”

“I called him,” Reggie said. “Offered a truce.”

“Mighty sporting, considering how badly we’ve been kicking their keesters,” Frank said dryly.

“It’s gotta be costing them money, maintaining a faction that size. They can’t be growing fast enough on the backend to pay for it all.”

“So, you decided to cut Yankee Doodle a deal to pack up his star-spangled clown show and hit the road. That about it?” Apparently, the liberty-based theme Napoleon had chosen for his faction rubbed Frank the wrong way.

Reggie sympathized, though that wasn’t his major issue with the guy. “Didn’t even get as far as negotiating. He cut me off, threw around some insults, and promised to flatten our whole faction, Green Zone and all, if the developers start allowing base raids.”

“You’re bunk buddies with that bigwig,” Frank said. “Go ask him yourself.”

“That’s not the point,” Reggie said, missing the one-ball. “I don’t want to get pinned into our starting planet, unable to expand. That’s almost worse than getting wiped out. At least then, I could start over.”

“Listen,” Frank said. “I come to Armored Souls because it reminds me of the good old days. Sure, maybe the army didn’t have walking colossi back in dubya-dubya two, but we had a bunch of boys who’d bleed out to keep each other alive. That’s what I miss. Not the uniforms. Not the getting shot at. Sure as hell not the food. It’s that sense of you and a bunch of your buddies against the world. Nothing else quite like it. Armored Souls is the closest I’ve found to getting that feeling back.”

Reggie gave a single, mirthless chuckle. “Ya know, I was almost ready to switch over to Silent Shuriken. But that’s probably what I can’t get out of my blood about this place myself. That whole ninja vibe is too lone wolf for me. I like having someone’s back and them having mine.”

“Well, it’s neither here nor there, but as long as you’re sticking it out, I’m not going nowhere,” Frank said. “Those namby-pamby Liberty Clan bozos back us into a corner, and I’ll be in that corner with you.”

Reggie let out a long sigh as Frank took his turn, knocking down the one- and two-balls in rapid succession. “Not that I wouldn’t prefer not getting backed into a corner.”

“That there is whatcha call ay-see-metric warfare,” Frank said sage. “Or in the local parlance: hit ‘em where they ain’t lookin.’”

“Easier said than done,” Reggie muttered.

Frank sank another shot. “Most things are. History’s filled with stories about the little guy winning. Might not happen as much as in the movies, but there’s a lesson or two in those old books.”

Reggie was skeptical. Armored Souls didn’t have the unlimited options of reality. He couldn’t poison wells or hide in the woods like guerrillas. He couldn’t subvert civilian populations. Reggie was a collection of skill points as far as Armored Souls was concerned, just Perception, Gunnery, Shooting, Agility, Piloting, Toughness, and of course, Command. How could he leverage that into a viable counteroffensive against a superior foe?

While Reggie played a few games with Frank, he bounced ideas off the old-timer. But he knew Frank wasn’t the one to solve this problem for him, nor would Frank spur Reggie’s thinking in any direction to let him solve it himself.

Reggie needed Chase.

Chapter Forty-Two

Chase was playing around in Silent Shuriken. That’s where Reggie tracked him down. Or rather, that’s where Reggie hung out to let Chase find him.

Reggie sat atop a clay-tiled roof, watching the clouds pass in front of a full moon. He’d purchased a clay jug of rice wine and drank to pass the time.

“Shouldn’t drink in this one,” Chase said, startling Reggie as he spoke before revealing his presence.

“Why not?” Reggie asked. “Acquired taste, but it’s growing on me.” He took a swallow from the jug and gasped in satisfaction.

“It’s schmuck bait,” Chase said. “All penalties; no upside. You get assassination targets and informants drunk. You slip past drunken guards. There’s a universal lesson here that being drunk makes you a target, a victim. A shinobi maintains control of himself and his environment.”

Reggie sighed and lobbed his jug into a city street.

“Also a good way to get killed,” Chase said, crossing his arms. “I’m tempted to leave you to figure that part out for yourself, but I’m guessing you’re not here to play.”

“I need to ninja up Armored Souls a little,” Reggie said. “Liberty Clan made some sort of blood vow or something to wipe us out, and I need some kind of metagame plan to fight back.”

Chase rubbed at his chin, even though he wore a mask and probably couldn’t feel it. “Well, you’re right about needing an alternate means of combating them. There’s no way we can take them in a fair fight. The Armored Souls system isn’t built to allow too much non-standard warfare. It’s a war game, but at its heart, it’s a battle game. The difference is—”

“I know the difference,” Reggie said before Chase could start explaining the concept of war to a career soldier. “What I need is whatever you can think of to slip into that gap between what the game allows and what it encourages.”

“So, you’re looking for exploits…?” Chase said, cocking his head.

“No.”

“Cheat codes?”

“No.”

“Something close to botting, like that Mechromancer build?” Chase suggested.

“I talked to him. He won’t join up with us,” Reggie said. “But I’m looking for stuff like sabotage, infiltration, traps, decoys, that sort of thing. I can’t get within a country mile of a hack or exploit. Armored Souls means too much to my lifestyle to risk even a couple days worth of banning.”

“Special ops stuff might work,” Chase suggested. “But we’d need to cough up credits for a bunch of skill resets. Only Monty’s Commando build. We’d need a whole platoon like that at the least.” He chuckled. “Might be fun, actually. We could be the galaxy’s biggest troll faction.”

“What do you mean, troll faction?”

“Well, we wouldn’t win,” Chase warned. “But we’d piss off Liberty Clan like there’s no tomorrow. It’s borderline griefing, but nobody would care. What Liberty Clan’s doing to us now is ten times worse.”

Reggie considered it. It would be 100,000Cr to reset his skills again, and the time after that would cost 1,000,000Cr. His next skill reset was liable to be his last since a million credits was crazy just to switch up play styles.

“You think everyone would go for it?” Reggie asked.

“Only one way to find out, but I’m guessing you might lose some people,” Reggie said. “Lin’s a PVP girl at heart, but she plays Armored Souls for the juggernaut action, not the whole military vibe. June would probably follow you to hell and back. Honestly, Frank might be better off Commando than that fucked-up Toughness build of his.”

“Would it work?” Reggie asked.

Chase shook his head. “Even if we all go Commando—and I’m not talking underwear here—we’d get our asses kicked six ways from Sunday before we ever got to the ground forces part of most missions. Maybe you don’t see it from your seat, but I can tell the instant I get out of range of that Command Radius of yours. My aim goes to shit, and Diablo starts handling a little sluggish on me. This would be doubly painful since not only would I be out that Command Radius bonus, but I’d be putting my own skill points into Shooting and Agility instead of Piloting and Gunnery.”

Reggie scowled into the night in the direction he’d pitched his rice wine. “So we’re screwed. Any other options you can think of?”

“Hit and run?” Chase suggested. “Might not work long term, but in the short term, we might actually take Liberty Clan’s holdings and raze them. Could be enough to force them to the bargaining table.”

“We tried that once already,” Reggie pointed out.

Chase raised a single, gloved finger. “Ah, but you didn’t plan for the response.”

Chapter Forty-Three

Reggie took Chase’s idea to heart. While everyone else logged out to work, rehab, or whatever else the rest of the ambulatory members of Wounded Legion did with their days, Reggie studied.

Expansion patterns.

Login activity.

Transit times.

Response times.

Force figures.

Reggie took notes and made notations. He started formulating a battle plan. The goal was simple. Hit Liberty Clan, and get them to respond against a fraction of Wounded Legion’s members. Then, before Napoleon could switch destinations, hit them somewhere else with the rest of the legion.

The key was the travel time between star systems.

It seemed so inconsequential under most circumstances. Reggie had always just considered it a form of population control, limiting players to certain areas near where they started based on the player base’s inherent impatience with long-distance drop ship rides. But just like Al Capone, the most notorious mobster in history, was brought low by tax-evasion charges of all things, Reggie was planning to win his video game war with logistics.

He had two targets picked out. One was the decoy: Carbine Minor. The other was the Wounded Legion’s real target: Tullus VI. Both were currently owned by Liberty Clan.

There was a knock at Reggie’s door. “Come on in.”

June stepped inside, and the door shut behind her. “Chase said you were looking for me?”

“I want another set of eyes on this plan, someone with a good tactical sense, but not Chase,” Reggie said.

June’s shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly. “Yeah. Sure. What’ve you got?”

“I want you to lead a team to Carbine Minor,” Reggie said, bringing up specs on the planet for June to scan.

She leaned back, apparently having reached the point where she saw the defenses. “What’s the deal? Chase cook up some tricky ploy to take that impregnable fortress?”

“No, we’re not bringing ten platoons to take it,” Reggie said. “We’re not going to take it at all.”

June scowled. “Well, at least you’re getting realistic about our chances. But what’s the point of attacking it?”

Reggie called up a tactical readout of Tullus VI. “How do you like this one?”

He studied June’s face as she read the specs on the legion’s real target, waiting for the moment when she put together the pieces.

“Looks like a good fight,” June said with a nod. “We’d do a lot better taking on this one. Even if we can’t hold it—which I suspect, taking it from Liberty Clan directly—we can at least bloody their noses.”

“We’re hitting both,” Reggie said. “We might be able to take Tullus VI with as few as six juggernauts. I’m bringing eight. But that’s contingent on Liberty Clan not getting reinforcements to Tullus VI in time to swing the odds. To overrun the defenses that quickly, I’d need to bring four full platoons. But we only have two. You and SwampFox are going to head to Carbine Minor to draw the Liberty Clan rapid response team, then you’re bugging out. The other eight of us are going to be landing on Tullus VI about the time our buddy Napoleon is wondering where the hell the attackers on Carbine Minor went.”

A slow smile grew on June’s face. She nodded as the plan sank in and nestled into her brain. “I like it. When do we leave? Soon, I imagine?”

Reggie shook his head. “No rush. Napoleon has some sort of early morning job. He logs off by 0530 every night. My plan is for him to leave for work wondering what happened at Tullus VI.”

Chapter Forty-Four

Reggie sat in the cockpit of Vortex, locked in among the opposing rows of juggernauts lining the drop ship’s interior. The spot by the ramp normally occupied by Artemis was vacant, left that way as a reminder to the rest of the legion that she and SwampFox were on this mission as well, even though they were on the far side of Liberty Clan territory.

The drop ship ride had been timed. If the situation was fluid, Reggie could switch up the orders to delay their arrival, but he trusted June to keep her end of things on schedule.

“Anyone want to tell ghost stories?” Chase asked. “A guy at work shared a good one this morning. Here goes… it was a dark and stormy night on a lonely road—”

“Another time,” Reggie cut in. “We’re on a tight clock here.”

“Besides,” Frank said. “I’ve heard that one before. Fella has a hook hand.”

Chase was incredulous. “No. He doesn’t have a—”

“Hook hand,” Frank said firmly. “Done deal. Story’s over. Everyone’s scared to piss. Time to land this bird and play a little Rock’em Sock’em.”

“Not quite yet,” Reggie said.

He waited, watching his tactical display for a notification, having adjusted his setting to make sure he’d get the message when June had engaged enemy forces.

ASHARI popped up from the console. “Sgt. King, I notice that your heart rate is unusually elevated prior to this mission.”

Reggie glanced down at the radio controls to make sure he wasn’t talking with an open mic, but ASHARI was good about overriding the radio controls when she wanted to talk. “Is it?” he asked with a shrug. “Maybe. Nothing to worry about.”

“On the contrary, you’ve been avoiding my advice to relax and find some fun to relieve stress,” ASHARI said. “Had I realized that complex tactical operations would produce a dopamine response, I wouldn’t have to keep suggesting that Lt. Mallet join you in your quarters.”

“That… that’s been your doing?” Reggie shouted, hoping he hadn’t been loud enough to hear from other cockpits. He controlled his voice. “Get off my case, and leave June out of this.”

“Just because you haven’t been suffering flashbacks doesn’t mean your mental state is normal,” ASHARI said. “You’ve been into two bouts of a diagnosable depressive state. To date, your brief encounters with Lt. Mallet have shown the highest degree of recovery.”

“It’s fake,” Reggie said. “Simulated responses to simulated physical contact. Rather get my adrenaline rush fighting.”

“For which I was attempting to congratulate you,” ASHARI said. “You are making headway solving your own—”

Reggie shut off the holograph with a fist thumped on the console button.

“Mind your own business,” he muttered.

0450 hours…

When they’d planned out the mission, June’s arrival time on Carbine Minor had been 0447. She should be on the surface, but there was no built-in mechanism to alert him to the second drop ship’s landing.

“What do we do if they botch this?” Chipz asked.

Radio switched back on, Reggie replied. “We carry on. This isn’t an if/then mission. They have a job to do. So do we. If we have to go out on a limb and trust that they get their shit done, that’s what we do. I have every confidence that June and SwampFox can pull this off.”

0452 hours…

[Wounded Legion Force Engaged on Carbine Minor]

“There we go,” Reggie said. “That’s the signal. Beginning approach to Tullus VI.”

He could envision June and SwampFox taking on a sentry force. Nothing seemed to indicate a larger raid than attempting to quickly and quietly eliminate the sentries along a single approach to a target. With Artemis’s scanners and SwampThing’s new LRM-heavy build, they ought to be taking indirect shots without being spotted in return. For all Liberty Clan knew, the entirety of Wounded Legion was on Carbine Minor.

It would take Reggie and his remaining troops twelve minutes to arrive on Tullus VI. If Napoleon was on the ball, that was right about the time he’d be arriving on Carbine Minor to chase wild geese that June had left behind.

0502 hours…

“June, pull out,” Reggie ordered. Radio silence time was over. If by some miracle Liberty Clan had hackers who could intercept and decrypt Wounded Legion military frequencies, it would only cost them a couple minutes worth of confusion.

“Roger that,” June confirmed. “Already on our way back to the drop ship. No sign that they spotted us yet.”

Reggie cracked his knuckles. His own drop ship was already in the Tullus VI atmosphere, ready to make landfall.

Chapter Forty-Five

[Primary Objective: Force the Surrender of Tullus VI to Wounded Legion]

Reggie was in no mood to set secondary objectives that night.

The drop ship disgorged its occupants. Wounded Legion acted as one. Reggie had forgone platoon assignments for this mission in favor of a single detachment of eight juggernauts. This was among the least defended of Liberty Clan’s civilian worlds, and Reggie planned to bum rush it.

“Harper, Chipz, Monty, fan out and get eyes on the stationary defenses,” Reggie ordered. “Frank, lead the charge.”

There was no point arriving at the battle before Frank got there. He and Lin were the legion’s most dangerous fighters. Any long-range combat along the way would simply be to suppress the defenders’ response to their assault.

Tullus VI was a blue-green marble with limited land mass. If not for that fact, it might have been a population center to rival the core worlds. Instead, it was a beachgoer’s paradise comprised of 95 percent surface water and strings of Philippine-style archipelagos. The drop ship had placed them on an uninhabited island just off the coast of the major population center.

The scouts had already gone into the sea. Now it was Frank’s turn to lead Gremlin into the watery depths.

Waves lapped Vortex’s torso as Reggie waded into the saltwater. There was something ancient and powerful about the ocean, and walking into it with no intention of keeping above the surface had a Cthulhu feel to it.

Except this wasn’t a suicide by drowning or an offering to the Elder Gods. This digital ocean was shallow between islands in the chain. There would never be more than 100 meters of seawater above Reggie and his detachment.

The sea was filled with exotic fish of every variety. The level of detail that Valhalla West put into its designs never ceased to amaze Reggie. None of them looked familiar to him, though he was no marine biologist, but the whole effect was of an undersea ecology that could have been transported directly from an aquarium on Earth.

TARGET DATA ACQUIRED

Reggie scanned the mini-map as soon as Harper broadcast the island’s defenses. “All right. We’ve got artillery at Juliet-eight-niner. Monty, lay down fire to keep the gunners there occupied. There are terrestrially launched aerial fighters based at Kilo-niner-four. Chipz, take out as many as you can before they get any airborne. Harper, you—”

“Already on it,” Harper confirmed without being told. Reggie watched him alter course for the mountain pass where reinforcements would most likely arrive by.

There was room on the far side of the island for a drop ship to land. The island was designed to defend from the other side. The volcanic mountains that split the island unevenly into two regions left one side heavily inhabited (where all the best beaches could be found) while the other was choked with jungle and military installations.

Wounded Legion’s assault by sea was a back door into the heart of Tullus VI’s main city.

Reggie lost sight of Gremlin’s head as it broke the water. They were almost there. The uphill climb brought Vortex ever closer to breaching the surf as well.

When Reggie came up, water cascaded down Vortex’s windshield. Ahead of him, Frank dripped and poured waterfalls down every surface of Gremlin, gleaming like a car getting a driveway wash minus the bucket of suds. To either side of him, Chase and Lin emerged as well, with Spike taking up the rear position in Nails.

Frank stomped across the beach, civilians already having scattered for cover upon seeing the scouts come out of the water in front of them. Gremlin scattered umbrellas and beach blankets. He knocked over a lifeguard station. Stomping for the inland roads, he cut a direct line for the government center, where the quaint waterfront gave way to skyscrapers and municipal edifices.

The rest of them remained in the water.

“Incoming,” Chipz called out.

TARGET DATA ACQUIRED

The aerial fighters had launched, represented by eleven blips on the mini-map.

“Fire at will,” Reggie ordered. Frank lumbered onward while the juggernauts cooled by the washing surf let loose hell on the airborne threat.

Beam Cannons did the hard work. Chase and Reggie picked apart the aircraft before most of them could launch their payloads. A few fired off Beam Cannon-Ss, but those did little to the juggernauts. Plasma Launcher fire wasn’t accurate enough to hit the fast-moving fighters, but Spike’s Chi-Ri was packing missiles requisitioned from the Dundee Proving Ground in the brief window where Wounded Legion had owned it.

The real surprise was Lin in her Dragon. Yulong’s Anti-Matter Projector was like duck hunting with main battle tank. Surprisingly, it worked. Lin was picking off one fighter per shot—obliterating them, in fact.

“How you pulling that off?” Chase asked.

Lin snorted derisively. “Snipers gonna snipe. Aiming’s for noobs. I’m a headshot machine.”

“Or you’re getting lucky, and Reggie’s Command Radius is enough to let you get away with snap-shooting with that hell cannon of yours,” Chase countered.

TARGET DATA ACQUIRED

“Cavalry’s coming,” Harper announced as the Liberty Clan NPC defensive juggernauts appeared on the mini-map. “I’ve got four Wolverines, three Osprey, two Tigers—”

“And a partridge in a pear tree,” Chase sang.

“One Elephant,” Harper finished.

“We don’t want to fight that Elephant,” Reggie said. “Monty, rendezvous with Frank and get to the capital building. Everyone else, hold off those reinforcements.”

Trudging out of the surf, Reggie had a flash of old war movies set on D-Day. This wasn’t Normandy, but he’d always wondered what it must have been like for those old-timers to charge out of landing craft onto a beachhead. Today wasn’t going to teach him that feeling, because those brave souls hadn’t been armored in a 65-ton juggernaut, nor had they been playing a video game.

Still, the march out of the water gave Reggie chills.

“I’m almost there,” Frank said. “Stomped a couple rolly-tanks, all real world and ineffective. Kinda felt bad about it, actually. But I did the—”

“Get inside,” Reggie ordered. “Monty’s 200 meters out. He’ll catch up with you.”

This whole mission, start to finish, was an exercise in speed and timing. June and SwampFox had done their part. The scouts had managed theirs. Now it was Frank and Monty—the latter pulling double duty—to close it out.

“Got a target lock,” Lin reported, taking up a position behind an apartment building that came to armpit height on Yulong. She aimed her Anti-Matter Projector over the top of it with a line of sight to the mountain pass.

“Harper, fall back,” Reggie radioed. “We’ll see them coming now. Anything not already entering the pass will surrender along with the planet.”

“No pressure or anything,” Monty said cheerfully. Tallyho pulled up alongside Gremlin on the mini-map.

Reggie took cover behind a commercial skyscraper. There were bound to be civilian casualties, but they were just bits of data.

Just bits of data.

Not like Reggie.

Reggie still had a slab of flesh back on meatspace with a human brain in it. These digitized civilians didn’t.

He kept telling himself that as awestruck gawkers lined the windows of the office building beside him, fates resigned and curiosity overwhelming them. They pressed against the glass windows for a better view, seemingly aware that no place was safe and preferring to watch the spectacle in the hopes they might survive to tell the tale.

[Elephant[1] - 85% To Hit]

There was one nice factor to facing a slow-moving massacre machine like an Elephant. They were hard to miss.

Reggie leaned out to fire both Plasma Launchers and both Beam Cannon-Ms mounted on Vortex. All four shots connected with Elephant[1]’s torso.

Elephant[1] Torso: 160/180

It’s not that it was ineffective fire, but Reggie had a long ways to go before he put a real dent in the thing.

But the Elephant pilot had taken note of Vortex.

Two Mass Driver shots came in, and Vortex lost its left arm in an instant. Red damage warnings flared, and Reggie ducked back into cover, taking himself out of the fight.

This wasn’t a kill-all mission. This was a planetary conquest. Liberty Clan didn’t have the Zealot trait, so getting Tullus VI’s civilian government to stand down was going to end hostilities.

From behind his skyscraper, Reggie watched the tactical maps. The Tullus VI defenders were closing in. That damned Elephant wasn’t stopping in the face of continued fire from Yulong, and its four legs were all armored to prevent quick, accurate Anti-Matter Projector shots from disabling it.

“Frank, Monty, report in,” Reggie ordered. He could win a pitched battle—probably—but war wasn’t always about eliminating every last enemy. Sometimes it was about maneuvering them to a lost position where they could see only surrender and destruction ahead of them.

“Bloody maze!” Frank complained. “Designed by madmen!”

“We’re almost there,” Monty said. “They have maps on the walls.”

“Written in pig Latin!”

Reggie watched the scouts play hide-and-seek. He watched the duel between Lin and the oncoming freight train of a super-heavy juggernaut. He watched the pennants flying above the Tullus VI courthouse with their Liberty Clan blue and white star.

[Primary Objective Complete: Force the Surrender of Tullus VI to Wounded Legion]

[Mission Successful - 11,250 XP - 10,000Cr]

The courthouse pennants changed to Wounded Legion khaki.

“Calling back the drop ship now!” Reggie shouted. “Everyone meet up at the park at Golf-seven-seven.”

Shifting Vortex into action, he programmed an auto-pilot course for the meet-up.

Then Reggie made a call.

A holographic face appeared where ASHARI often came to badger him. “Hey, King. Your plan come off?”

The face belonged to GladiatorGabe, leader of The Stone Star State. He was bald and bore a nasty scar that cut across his left eye from forehead to jawline. His faction was in the top five in all the Star League, dwarfing the Liberty Clan as much as they dwarfed Wounded Legion.

“Yup,” Reggie said. “Tullus VI is Wounded Legion property. Mostly intact too.” He punched in a command and relayed an up-to-the-minute tactical status to GladiatorGabe.

The holographic face looked off camera for a moment. “All right. I’ll give you a half mil for it.”

“Deal,” Reggie said without hesitation. Then he paused. “You know Liberty Clan’s going to be pissed, right?”

[Tullus VI Now Owned by The Stone Star State]

GladiatorGabe smiled. “Let ‘em. I’m already upgrading the defensive net. I’ll have fifty juggernauts on the ground inside the hour. Pleasure doing business, King.”

“What’s going on?” Chase asked.

“The surprise part of my plan,” Reggie said, switching frequencies. “We all knew coming in that we couldn’t hold this place. I just snagged us 500,000Cr for our war efforts and gave it over to someone who could.”

Chase hooted laughter.

“I don’t get it,” Chipz said. “We could’ve run merc jobs if we just wanted money.”

Reggie arrived at the rendezvous. “We took a planet from Liberty Clan and gave it to someone who they can’t take it back from. The money’s just a bonus. We can’t win an outright war with these clowns, but we’re going to make them pay.”

Chapter Forty-Six

June and SwampFox were already back at the Green Zone waiting when Reggie arrived with the rest of Wounded Legion. They’d purchased champagne from the in-game store and showered the conquering—and reselling—heroes with sudsy bubbly as soon as they climbed down from their juggernauts.

SwampFox met Reggie with a bro hug, clapping him on the back. “Man, that was great! I fired off about a dozen volleys of LRMs. I bet those Liberty Clan NPCs thought I was six guys. Felt naked not packing any other weaponry, but it didn’t matter. I ran like hell when they started searching.”

June came up and hugged Reggie as well. “The mission survival bonus was a sweet gesture too.”

“I just wanted to make sure you both knew it wasn’t a suicide mission,” Reggie said. “Glad I wasn’t wrong.”

Most of the legion had to go to work soon, but for the time they had, they partied. It was times like this that Reggie wished there were more than just the ten of them left. Ten was small for a bash-type party, and no amount of cranking up the volume on the music could change that.

Still, it felt good. Reggie’s soul had been polished clean and given a fresh coat of wax. He felt like a new man.

As the party wound down and players started having to log out, Reggie pulled June aside. “I spoke to ASHARI,” he said to her. “She said I was doing a lot better.”

“Oh,” June said. “Glad you’ve replaced Dr. Zimmerman with an AI lapdog.”

“No. It’s not like that,” Reggie protested. After all, Zimmerman and his Valhalla West buddies are the ones who customized ASHARI for him. “I just mean, you two don’t need to worry about keeping my morale up.”

“Oh?” June said with a raised eyebrow. “What’s she been doing for you?”

Reggie couldn’t tell if June was jealous or just giving him a hard time. “Forget it. Forget I said anything. Great work out there tonight, but I think I’m going to get some shuteye.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

Reggie’s shuriken flew wide of the mark, sticking point-first into a wooden support beam. The target of his assassination, a portly merchant with a thin, twisted mustache, had been blissfully unaware of his impending death.

[Bonus FAIL!: Target Aware of Shinobi]

The word fail appeared in bloody letters even as a system message.

Nama Hideo’s bodyguards sprang from their seats and shielded their master’s body even as they drew swords to meet his attacker.

“Noob,” Chase said from beside him, using the Night’s Whisper ability to speak without being heard by anyone but Reggie.

Before Reggie could botch things up any worse, Chase flung two throwing stars of his own. Through the [Falling Sword Throw] ability, each expanded mid-flight and decapitated a swordsman. The two bodyguards gushed blood from their necks and toppled over.

[Bonus!: Twin Kill]

Reggie looked in jealousy at Chase’s top-level gear and wondered if he’d ever play enough Silent Shuriken to earn that junk. Pushing aside thoughts of the future, he drew his sword and charged in.

Nama Hideo crawled backward on his hands. “Please. Don’t! I’m begging you. Whatever they paid you, I’ll—”

His words were cut off when Reggie’s sword took him through the chest.

[Assassination: Successful!]

[Bounty 2,500¥]

“Good man,” Chase said, sauntering up behind him. “Much better than your aim with the shuriken. Never take the bait when they offer more money. It’s always just a ploy.”

Reggie took his sword out of the dead man and gave it a flick to clean it. The game didn’t care if it got put away wet or not, and the cleaning gesture—either a flick or a wipe across clean cloth—was essentially just an emote. “Wouldn’t it be a better game if sometimes the offer was legitimate?”

Chase shrugged. “I’ll mention it to Mike and Yuhong at lunch tomorrow. Might be cool for beta. But right now we’ve got business.”

“Business?” Reggie asked. “I thought you were just shadow-leveling me tonight.”

“Something came up. Remember our old contact?”

“The one who got us our asses kicked on Torbek?” Reggie asked.

Chase leaped into the night skyline, forcing Reggie to follow suit or lose track of him. “Hey, his intel was good. We didn’t make great use of it. That’s all.”

“What’s he got for us this time?” Reggie asked.

“Dunno.”

There was a festival in Forest City that night. The streets and waterfront were lit by red paper lanterns, and the air was filled with the music of drums and flutes. Chase wound his way through the merriment of locals out to enjoy themselves, never alerting them to his presence. Reggie bumbled behind, making apologies and trying to keep up.

Reggie caught up with his friend as Chase held a knife to Choumi’s throat in an alley behind a noodle bar.

“So, what’s the deal tonight?” Chase asked.

“Let me go or the deal’s off, psycho!” Choumi protested.

Chase snickered and let the Liberty Clan traitor go, giving him a shove that left him sprawled against the noodle shop’s wall. “Spill it.”

“Napoleon’s pissed,” Choumi said. “Mondo pissed. If you thought you were going to get him off your backs with that stunt, you’ve got another think coming.”

Reggie looked to Chase, who just shrugged. “I don’t think we expected Napoleon to give up after one loss,” Reggie said. “We just wanted to prove we can sting. We’re going to keep picking off stragglers and selling them before he can take them back. We’re going to live fat on the sale of Tullus VI for days. Might even be a better business model than our original expansion plans. And if Nappy-boy figures out how to stop us from doing that, I’ll come up with some new way to hit back.”

Choumi shook his head. “You’re idiots. You don’t understand. You’re finished. Might as well get used to this place since Silent Shuriken’s all you’ll have left.”

Chase twirled a dagger between his fingers. “How?”

Choumi shook his head. “Not this time. You’ve got nothing I want. I just wanted you to know how screwed you are.”

Chase flung his dagger. But before it left his hand, Choumi was already gone.

“Coward,” Chase muttered, opening his palm so that the dagger could reappear there. “He logged out.”

“What do you think?” Reggie asked. “He just yanking our chains?”

With a shrug, Chase melted into the shadows. “Can’t say. Guess we’ll find out.”

Chapter Forty-Eight

Reggie found out the next morning. When he logged back into Armored Souls, the message Choumi was delivering became clear.

[Faction > Roster > News (8) > Rewards > Info]

Near the top of the list, one item jumped out.

[D-O-Double-Gs of War Has Declared War on Wounded Legion]

Reggie puzzled over the name until he figured out that they were Snoop Dogg fans—or at least whoever named them was. But beyond the curious choice of faction name, they were roughly the size of Liberty Clan.

“Since when do the bullies call for backup?” Reggie asked himself. In every movie and TV show playground scene, the wimpy kid standing up to the bully was the rallying cry of the oppressed. If the wimpy kid’s actions alone didn’t put an end to the bully’s rein of terror, the horde of emboldened nerds and bystanders did.

Just as Reggie was beginning to wrap his head around the idea that there was a second faction intent on curb-stomping Wounded Legion, he noticed another notification in his news items.

[Mecha Frenzy Has Declared War on Wounded Legion]

“Wonderful,” he muttered.

Checking the faction list, Reggie discovered that they were even larger than the other two factions allied against him. All told, Liberty Clan and their allies controlled over five hundred planets.

Reggie had three.

There was some run-of-the-mill daily fare in his feed, but the last item that mattered was a message from Freedom Coach Napoleon:

“Hey, King. Hope you don’t mind, but some friends of mine decided to join the asshole-kicking party. How could I deny them the fun of kicking your ass? The three of us have vowed to keep the war going until Wounded Legion disbands. We’re going to lock you down in your headquarters. Anything you conquer will be taken from you in an instant. Anyone who’s still in your faction after tomorrow is going to get permanently blackballed by every other faction on the server. I want you to be the last man sitting alone in your hangar, staring at your shitty juggernaut.

“Have a nice day. Enjoy your custom-made, hand-delivered freedom. You shouldn’t have messed with us.”

Chapter Forty-Nine

In defiance of Freedom Coach Napoleon’s threats and the looming alliances hanging over their heads, Wounded Legion’s next action was conquest. Reggie wasn’t willing to sit back and let that sniveling punk dictate how he ran his faction.

Gaius II was a farming planet with little income and no strategic value. Its claims to fame were being virtually undefended and only a five-minute flight from the Green Zone aboard a drop ship. Reggie didn’t even wait for everyone to log in before setting out with six juggernauts to plant a khaki flag on the little brown ball of dirt.

Twenty minutes after their return to headquarters, Reggie and everyone else in Wounded Legion received the following system notification:

[Gaius II Captured by D-O-Double-Gs of War]

“Well,” Chase said as they gathered in the War Room immediately afterward. “At least they weren’t idle threats.”

Frank spat on the floor. “Used to be an unwritten rule. Two fellas get in a dust up, you stand back and let ‘em settle it like men. Got no use for a man who sees an uneven fight and sides with the guy doing all the punching. Sucker punchers got no courage.”

“Who cares if they’re fighting fair or not?” Lin asked. “They’re fighting us. We’ve got to do something or—” Then she caught herself.

“Or what?” Chase asked. “Or you’ll bail?”

Lin crossed her arms and looked away. “I’m not gonna bail. But I don’t like the idea of getting our faces pushed in the toilet and the water flushed.”

“That’d be a swirlie,” Frank said, raising a finger. “One of my boys had some troubles with that one. Taught him to box after that.”

“I don’t think boxing lessons are going to work here,” Reggie said. He turned on the holographic field and pointed to the galactic map, indicating a patch of space that was now an olive drab. “That’s us. This is Liberty Clan. And this is Dogs of War. And this is Mecha Frenzy.” As he tapped out each of their allied enemy factions, a blue blob appeared that dwarfed Wounded Legion. Then an orange blob joined it, followed by a silver blob that just made the comparison between the two sides ludicrous.

“We need a plan,” June said.

“We need to evacuate those scientists from Alcon Prime,” Chase suggested.

Reggie gave him a frown. “What? Just give up on holding out?”

“The scientists have value. That loot from Tullus VI could easily buy us a research lab to make use of them. Maybe we could unlock some tech boosts,” Chase said.

“Fine. I’ll recall them,” Reggie said. “But this feels like preparing for a siege more than a defense.”

“It will be a siege,” Chase assured him. “They can do everything Napoleon promised.”

Frank grunted. “And when they do, you’ll be off having pajama sword fights every night.”

Reggie stepped in before Chase had an opportunity to answer. “If anyone wants out, I’ll understand. What’s coming isn’t going to be pretty. It won’t be easy. Frankly, it’s probably going to mostly suck. But I refuse to just give in and let these losers beat us.”

Monty raised a glass he’d brought in from the bar. “Here, here!”

The sentiment echoed around the War Room.

Reggie wondered how long the bullish enthusiasm would last.

Chapter Fifty

It took less than half an hour to recall the four scientists from Alcon Prime. They milled around the rec room chatting in opaque technobabble over beers while they awaited completion of the new research lab.

Reggie came up with another space rock to capture just to make the Liberty Coalition chase it down for disposal. If they were going to steal anything Wounded Legion took, it might as well include inhospitable wastelands with negative income and hazardous biomes filled with deadly creatures.

Fallen Glade was a designated xenobiology preserve, home to something called a Capra terribilis. There would be a weekly fine for occupying it in violation of Star League Science Council edicts. Yet less than half an hour after gaining ownership of it, all Wounded Legion personnel got the message:

[Fallen Glade Captured by Mecha Frenzy]

From there, Reggie and the Capture Platoon landed on Yevina, where the refugee colonists accepted them with open arms and joined Wounded Legion eagerly. They were also all infected with the Prymni Plague and required expensive medical treatments that would be automatically deducted from the parent faction’s coffers each day.

And yet, nineteen minutes after Reggie’s drop ship departed, the planet changed hands again.

[Yevina Captured by Liberty Clan]

“Hope old Napoleon’s up to date on his shots,” Chase had remarked.

But without pausing to reflect, Reggie took the Capture Platoon to an ice-type planet called Kelthant. Cockpit windows frosted over the instant the cargo bay door opened, allowing in an apocalyptic cold that threatened to freeze juggernauts solid if they didn’t fire off every heat-generating system available. Luckily, they only needed to plant a proverbial flag to claim the pointless, frozen rock.

[Kelthant Captured by D-O-Double-Gs of War]

“I don’t know about the rest of you,” Chase said as they got the message from the drop ship, “but I’m having a blast. We’re like evil real estate agents selling toxic waste dumps and protected wetlands to buyers too stupid to do their homework.”

“How long these rascals going to keep falling for it?” Frank asked.

Reggie sighed. “I don’t know how long we can find nearby systems that are this fucked up. I mean, we’re basically back-checking through the listings of planets that the developers never intended any player faction to control.”

He knew that the Liberty Coalition would keep taking as long as Wounded Legion had anything to take. It was a test of wills. And as much as Reggie wanted to bluster and assure everyone that no one had more will to fight than him, he couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud.

In case that promise turned out to be a lie.

Chapter Fifty-One

Not even Reggie could stay awake and play around the clock, and most of Wounded Legion was still closely tied to the waking world. Chipz had physical therapy every morning to help him walk again. Monty was scheduled for another reconstructive surgery. Lin still had a daily following for her live stream that demanded her attention and provided her income.

Everyone had something. Everyone but Reggie and Frank. And today, even Frank was absent, off on some nebulous errand in the real world despite being deemed unfit to operate a set of stairs unsupervised.

So Reggie was all alone as he opened up a game menu to see what had happened over the daytime hours he’d slept through.

[Faction > Roster > News (28) > Rewards > Info]

There were taunting messages from the Liberty Coalition leaders mixed in with battle reports. Reggie didn’t read any of them. All he cared about were the major notifications.

[Alcon Prime Captured by D-O-Double-Gs of War]

[Schet IX Captured by Liberty Clan]

Reggie backed out to the main menu.

[Faction > Roster > News (4) > Rewards > Info]

He selected Faction and brought up the listing of Wounded Legion holdings.

[Green Zone]

Taking a deep breath, Reggie checked the legion’s income.

[Wounded Legion - Net Income - -23,000Cr/Day]

The figure was highlighted in the same warning red as a missing arm or a fire aboard Vortex. Except that a mission loss was covered by insurance. Now, Reggie had to worry that if Wounded Legion didn’t keep up with generating income, he’d be forced to start selling off Green Zone in bits and pieces to make up the difference.

He remembered the days, not so long ago, when it was just the five of them running mercenary missions night after night. A 5-bay hangar. The rec room. Quarters for everyone. It hadn’t been a bad life, Reggie told himself.

But Armored Souls was about to shrink around Reggie like the walls of a prison cell if he didn’t do something to fight back. He’d seen the galaxy as more than a list of chores to do for other factions.

Reggie could have headed to his apartment in Seattle Lite to watch television. He could have created a character in any of Valhalla West’s other games. But instead, Reggie headed for the rec room, poured himself a beer, and watched the battle replays of the Liberty Coalition overrunning his final two planetary holdings.

Chapter Fifty-Two

Hours later, Chase logged in and found Reggie playing nine-ball by himself.

“Wow,” Chase said. “We’ve got to buy you a dog or something. No person should ever look that sad unless they’re dying of something awful.”

Reggie stood up and leaned on his cue. “If you want to get technical, I’m barely alive in the real world, hooked up to a ventilator and brain scanner, getting fed through tubes and having my blood cycled through a dialysis machine.”

Chase winced. “Sorry. Right. But I… I just mean… it’s not the end of the world. We can come back from this. Three factions aren’t going to just camp us for weeks. We can still sneak out and steal little planets. Make them work. C’mon. Let’s go claim a dead rock and make Freedom Coach Napoleon add it to his pet rock collection.”

He looked too earnest. For a guy who had no stake in this beyond the attachment he’d formed with Wounded Legion, he was certainly still willing to give it his all. How could Reggie let him down?

Laying the cue on the table without cleaning up the game in progress, Reggie gave a nod. “All right. Let’s do this.”

In the War Room, the two of them picked through the available options. The olive drab of Wounded Legion’s territory was now just a sphere around Green Zone no bigger than a cotton ball. The once desolate space all around them was being consumed by the three factions allied against them.

“Here’s the deal,” Chase said. “We need something with no defenses to speak of.” He tapped a few commands into the galactic map interface, and unclaimed star systems lit up. It was a tiny minority, but there were still a few choices nearby. “We also want something with limited potential for that fucker, Napoleon, to make use of.” Several more taps progressively reduced the targets to a countable number: seven.

“Any of those come with a penalty or anything?” Reggie asked.

Chase raised a finger. “I thought of that, but I ruled those out. Remember, Napoleon wants Wounded Legion disbanded. If we take on a negative income, he might switch up and let us keep it just long enough to crush us under its burden.”

Reggie rubbed his chin. “I don’t like the idea of giving him anything even remotely valuable.”

At that suggestion, Chase grinned. “Then why not sell it off as soon as we take possession? Tullus VI all over again.”

It could work. Even if they got a pittance for it, that would be one more pittance than they had now.

“Let’s do it,” Reggie said. “Pick one. It’s your plan, and I don’t care what we take.”

“How about… Gorthax XII. Never attacked a planet with that high a number before. Good a reason as any. It’s essentially a ball of iron.”

Iron. Mining. It might not be much, but Reggie could pitch that for a sale. Maybe he could convince someone to pay 50,000Cr for it. That could keep the war effort going for another two days.

On the walk to the hangar, Reggie psyched himself up. This was the Rebel Alliance. This was the French Resistance. There was no glory here, just a good fight with the hope of holding out long enough to win. Napoleon couldn’t win. All he could do was convince Reggie to give up, and Reggie could deny him that prize indefinitely.

The drop ship ride was eight minutes.

Gorthax XII looked like the pictures Reggie had seen of Mars. The whole surface of the planet appeared rusty.

[Primary Objective: Claim Gorthax XII for Wounded Legion]

The mission was a formality of capturing a world. All it would take would be to set foot on a completely unclaimed celestial body and declare it his. There was even a command to plant a flag there as a symbolic gesture.

Diablo followed Vortex out of the drop ship. “Not such a bad place,” Chase remarked. “I could see someone dumping a couple million credits into it to make a real mining colony.”

[Mission > Claim > XXXX]

The Plant Flag option was missing. “Huh?” Reggie said aloud.

“What?” Chase asked.

“I’m not getting the option to claim this place. Weird.”

Reggie tried another location. He drove Vortex across the craggy, broken terrain, keeping the menu open. If the option appeared, he’d see it light up.

TARGET DATA ACQUIRED

“Shit!” Chase shouted. “Back to the drop ship!”

That was why the option to claim Gorthax XII wasn’t showing up. The mini-map showed a hostile force on the ridge to the east at G-101.

“Those bastards! How did they know?” Reggie demanded. For a fraction of a second, he wondered if Chase had been the mole all along.

But no. Chase had been too loyal for too long. Reggie couldn’t doubt him. And besides, Chase had the obvious answer anyway.

“They have the manpower. They must be staking out potential targets.”

The Liberty Clan platoon that showed up on the tactical view consisted of two Tigers, two Demons, and a Jackal. They were all closing in and firing.

Vortex shook with repeated impacts. His attempts to shoot down the incoming LRMs were haphazard as the motion of a full-speed run for the drop ships jostled his aim.

Diablo was doing better against the missiles but still taking damage. Reggie tried to watch the wire frames of both juggernauts as he estimated whether he’d get there before the damage added up to destruction for one or both of them.

200m to the drop ship.

Vortex stumbled as a missile impacted mid-step. Hardened Systems flared as the skill spared its left knee joint from a debilitating malfunction.

Chase wasn’t so lucky.

150m to the drop ship, and Diablo toppled. An LRM had caught a hip flexor, and that was all the running Diablo would be doing this fight.

Reggie slowed up and maneuvered Vortex into position to shield Diablo from further fire. “Crawl!” he ordered, backing up in a slow retreat that threatened to trip over the downed Jackal if Chase didn’t start moving.

“Leave me,” Chase argued. “You can still make it. We won’t both get out of—”

But that was the last Reggie heard. Multiple impacts to the cockpit of Vortex had done him in.

Reggie awoke to the stinging odor of rubbing alcohol and a view of a digital clock mounted into the ceiling.

2:59:55

It counted down steadily as he watched.

“Warrior King,” a perky female voice cooed. “You’re awake. Don’t worry. We’ll have you fixed up in no time.”

That voice always grated on him. The curvaceous nurse in the pristine white Star League Medical uniform leaned over to give Reggie a smile and a look down the front of her blouse. He wondered if players who weren’t signed up for “extra services” got the same suggestive greeting upon arrival.

Glancing down, Reggie noted the shimmering blue force field that paralyzed him from the shoulders down. Those familiar, gruesome armatures equipped with needles, scalpels, and other medical miscellany better suited to horror movies than a real hospital dug at his guts in an effort to scare him into logging out for some fresh air.

2:59:35

This could be a long wait. For the first time, he found himself wondering how good that plastic, digital rendition of a nurse might be at making him feel better during his time out. No one would know. And Reggie sure as hell could use some cheering up.

Chase must have died too. He never talked about how he spent his enforced time out of Armored Souls after a death. He was probably having a right old party with his version of this same nurse.

Or was he?

Reggie shut his eyes. “Relog to Silent Shuriken,” he said, and the game obeyed.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Reggie reappeared, dressed in his ninja garb, at the fountain in Village of Cherry Blossoms. After the desolate, ferrous battlefield of Gorthax XII and the antiseptic sting of the Star League hospital, Reggie’s first act was to take a long, slow breath of the sweet air. His second was to sit on the fountain’s edge and just appreciate the pleasant trickle’s melody.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Chase said, stepping out of the noontime shadow of a nearby tree. “Figured you’d be getting your troubles sucked away. Thanks for the attempted save, by the way. I lasted a good ten seconds longer than you. But hey, it’s the thought that counts.”

“If thoughts counted, we’d have murdered those guys,” Reggie pointed out.

Chase strolled off down the dirt of the village’s only real street. “It was five on two, and they were camped out waiting for us. Solid ambush. Tip cap. Learn from mistake. It’s not like that’s the worst video game mistake I ever made.”

“Just feels like I should have anticipated it,” Reggie said. “Never assume your enemy is an idiot. We’d shown them a trick and weren’t ready to counter their adaptation.”

Chase giggled. “Oh, this one time in Caverns of Karkoong, I was leading a raid, and this little alert kept popping up while I was laying out the strat for the boss battle. That rock dragon was the size of a heavy juggernaut. Anyway, I give the go, and our hit points start dropping off a cliff. Turns out that notification I was too busy to check was our party healer getting left behind. He’d gone AFK, and I’d missed it in chat. Total wipe—well, except for the healer, who came back just in time to run his ass off.”

“This supposed to be making me feel better?” Reggie asked. Because it wasn’t. Chase being a screw-up was, in fact, demotivating. Here Reggie was, thinking his right-hand man had his act together, and now both of them had missed an obvious change in enemy tactics.

“How about this one?” Reggie asked, idly tossing and catching one of his daggers as he walked. “I played Ships of the Line for a while, and I’d just upgraded to a new fifth-rate frigate and was chomping at the bit to try it out. Got into my battle with a brand new crew and the first officer from my last vessel who I’d brought along. Run out the guns! Oops. No cannonballs. Hadn’t bought ‘em. Sailed around watching my mates get sunk for a while, then ended up ramming some Spanish galleon and logging out in shame.”

“How about we just hang out here in Silent Shuriken and forget other games for a while?” Reggie suggested.

Chase stopped and turned to fix Reggie with a suspicious glare. “How long a while?”

Reggie sighed, taking in the sweet scent of blooming flowers and a whiff of someone brewing tea. It was nice here, even without skulking around murdering people. “Just a mini-vacation. Couple days? My gas tank’s running on empty.”

“What about everyone back at the Green Zone?”

Reggie called up a menu. It defaulted to Silent Shuriken, but he navigated over to an Armored Souls interface.

[Faction > Roster > News (2) > Rewards > Info]

He ignored the taunts from Freedom Coach Napoleon and the report of his battle defeat.

Faction.

Commander.

[Wounded Legion - Commander (T) - June]

“There,” Reggie said. “June’s got full control of Wounded Legion until I get back. Now, how about you and me find some dastardly merchants to murder for money?”

Chapter Fifty-Four

It had been days. Reggie had grown accustomed to sleeping on a floor mat, drinking tea and rice wine instead of beer, and doing his murdering for profit from a sword’s blade away instead of from the seat of a giant robot.

The similarities otherwise had been allowing him to settle into a routine of mission, mission, sleep, mission, mission.

“Rise and shine, tank-boy,” Chase said one morning, kicking Reggie awake. It was the sort of stunt he could get away with in Silent Shuriken, where he was triple Reggie’s level with all the best gear developers could hide inside it.

Reggie snapped awake. The [Rooster’s Crow] ability wasn’t prized by most players, but to Reggie, it was better than coffee, an alarm clock, and a full bladder combined for getting him out of bed in the morning—plus it gave some bonus to fighting with the dawn sun at your back, but Reggie didn’t give a rat’s ass about that.

“What’s on the menu today?” he asked eagerly. “Political coup? Blood feud? Marital revenge?” The latter had always proven cathartic for him, taking out some poor slighted bastard’s frustrations on the object of his wife’s infidelity.

Chase’s eyes lit with eldritch fire. “We’re going to turn the tide in a war.”

Nice! Something meaty to sink his blades into. Reggie pumped a fist. “Hell yeah! Where to?”

“Armored Souls,” Chase replied, letting the fiery effect pass.

Reggie slumped his shoulders. “Oh. I was just starting to put that whole business behind me.”

“Really? I’ve caught you checking every day to make sure the roster hasn’t shrunk or June hadn’t disbanded us.”

“Couldn’t we hang out here a few more days?” Reggie asked. He didn’t need Chase’s permission, but the game was more enjoyable playing with someone he knew.

“June’s got a plan,” Chase said. “I think she should be the one to explain it. In person. You coming or not?”

Reggie wiped a hand over his face. “Yeah. Let’s get this over with.”

With a sigh, Reggie called up a game menu.

[Silent Shuriken > Logout]

Reggie tapped the word.

[Really Logout? Y/N]

UNABLE TO LOG OUT; USER BODY NOT AVAILABLE

Sometime he was going to have to talk to Ken Bradley about the bedside manner of the whole Valhalla West game universe.

[Relog options: Apartment - Armored Souls - Silent Shuriken - More Options]

Reggie tapped Armored Souls and closed his eyes for the trip. When he opened them, he was standing in his quarters. The lightweight, comfortable ninja gear had been replaced by the rough, sturdy combat uniform of a juggernaut pilot.

On the bright side, at least there was beer here, and he wouldn’t have to pull down a mask to drink it.

Steeling himself, Reggie headed for the War Room. But on the way there, Lin intercepted him.

“Come on, Commander,” Lin said, threading her arm through Reggie’s. “This way.”

Lin led him to the hangar, where Reggie stopped dead in his tracks. The rest of Wounded Legion was standing at attention, and there were more of them than Reggie remembered.

“Welcome back, sir,” June said with a salute. “I hope you enjoyed your R & R. We’ve had a bit of a swell in the ranks since you were last with us.”

Reggie did some quick math. He leaned in to speak privately with June. “You brought in ten new guys?”

June whispered in Reggie’s ear. “All active duty, stationed stateside. A couple navy guys, but the rest are US Army. No traitors in this bunch.”

“But… how?” Reggie asked breathlessly. Their last recruitment efforts had netted mostly flotsam, and of the few who weren’t, most of those had bailed when times got tough.

“Thank Lin,” June said. “It was her idea. She promoted a veterans event on her live stream and advertised for recruits.”

Reggie studied the formation, noting that even Chase had managed to sneak in and impersonate a soldier. “Where’s Frank?”

June’s conspiratorial smile fell. “Long story, but there’s a custody battle with his family. He can’t log back in until it’s resolved.”

Reggie breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Legal problems sucked, but when a guy Frank’s age goes missing—or hell, even goes to sleep at night—there’s always the worry that he’s off on his final mission.

“This is great and all,” Reggie said. “But we’re still outgunned.” He opened a faction menu and browsed the new guys. None were as high as Level 7. Training them up under siege by the Liberty Coalition would be hell.

“As my final act as acting commander, I’ve arranged a mission for us,” June said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to order my troops to—how do you say it?—saddle up and get ready to ride. You in?”

Right that minute, Reggie didn’t care if June had come up with the next Trojan Horse gambit to turn a war or its head or was marching them all into a black hole. She’d earned the leeway to carry it out as she saw fit.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Reggie promised.

Chapter Fifty-Five

Reggie learned in transit that Wounded Legion’s target was a Liberty Clan supply yard on a heavily fortified moon known as Tirith. It wasn’t on the border between what was once Wounded Legion space and Liberty Clan’s holdings, but neither was it far into their territory. Despite the boldness of taking 19 juggernauts to fight a place that showed defenses fit to hold off three times that number, Reggie wasn’t going to say anything.

Win or lose, he put his trust in June for days without checking in on her. It was his duty to let her play out the fruits of that command.

“All right, people,” June said. “No atmosphere, so nothing to speed up the cooling on those heat sinks. Watch your energy use. Don’t hold back on missiles. Keep to cover. This could be a long slog.”

A long slog? How could they hold out for anything but a quick strike mission? Reggie’s studies had confirmed that Liberty Clan had an efficient response squad, and this was Freedom Coach Napoleon’s prime playing time.

No.

Reggie bit his tongue to keep from undercutting June’s authority. This was the reward she got for her tenure as acting commander.

Still, Reggie couldn’t just let her walk into an unwinnable battle. Taking care to ensure he was on a private frequency with her, Reggie radioed across the drop ship’s cargo bay to June personally. “Hey, you sure about this game plan?”

“I know,” June said in a conciliatory huff. “This isn’t how we fight asymmetric wars. But tonight, please trust me. I’ve got a little surprise cooked up for these bastards.”

“Wasn’t going to say anything in front of the troops,” Reggie promised. “Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page that this is a suicide mission.”

“Bushido is realized in the presence of death,” June said solemnly. “This means choosing death whenever there is a choice between life and death. There is no other reasoning. That’s from The Book of Samurai.”

“I thought you hated Silent Shuriken,” Reggie said.

June snorted. “Samurai are the opposite of that sneaking, backstabbing business. And it was the see-through uniforms I hated, not the game play. But this fight is to prove something to Napoleon about honor.”

Reggie’s shoulders shook in a silent chuckle. Fine. If June wanted to send a message that Wounded Legion wasn’t afraid to die—over and over, possibly beyond the point of comedy—so be it.

They were back to using two drop ships now. When they thudded down onto the moon’s surface, the whole legion poured out.

[Primary Objective: Force the Surrender of Tirith to Wounded Legion]

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 0/119]

[Secondary Objective: Disable Planetary Communications Relay]

Reggie’s finger hovered above the button to open his mic and address the detachment, but he caught himself just in time.

ASHARI popped up from the console. “Difficulty in relinquishing command?”

“I’m fine,” Reggie said. “Just curious about something. What are the odds of this plan working?”

“I’m sorry,” ASHARI said. “You’ll have to be more specific. There are multiple levels of planning at work here. The odds of your plan to allow June control of the operational aspects of this mission stand at 60.5%.”

“That much confidence in me?” Reggie asked dryly. “No. I mean what are the odds that 19 of us complete all those objectives June set for this mission?”

“Zero,” ASHARI replied. “I don’t believe that this violates your prior instructions to me about not spoiling the tactical aspects of Armored Souls for you since I surmise that this was your own assumption as well.”

“Yeah,” Reggie muttered. He switched off ASHARI, and the holograph winked out of existence. “Time to go die all nobly to teach some punk who can’t grasp the concept of honor a lesson.”

Reggie was back to being part of Alpha Platoon. They were the shorthanded bunch, choosing to leave Frank’s spot unfilled for the mission. Reggie followed Diablo on a beeline for a ridge with a long-range view of the communications relay.

TARGET DATA RECEIVED

Reggie wasn’t sure how things would work with his Command skills now that he wasn’t platoon leader at least. It seemed that he was still patched into the unit’s tactical data. He almost wished he wasn’t. The mini-map buzzed with enemy units like a hornets’ nest after someone kicked it.

“Hold position at Alpha-Foxtrot-one-five-one,” June ordered. Reggie smiled that in a game where few players bothered with clarity in radio communication, Wounded Legion at least used the NATO alphabet to keep things clear. All the new guys would have known exactly what she meant.

One of the recruits was piloting a Gargoyle outfitted with Indirect Fire Artillery. Reggie hadn’t run the guy’s build, but it looked like a 150mm or 155mm cannon aimed skyward as he began a barrage aimed at the relay station.

Yulong knelt at the edge of the ridge and took aim, picking off surveillance drones that were attempting to get a fix on the legion’s position.

“Dig in,” June ordered. “Keep up that shelling, Benzo. The rest of you, prepare for the incoming shitstorm and keep control of this ridge.”

Reggie did as ordered. He found himself wishing that he’d swapped out equipment on Vortex for a longer range engagement. More than that, he wondered how many of the enemy juggernauts they could take out before sheer numbers and the inevitable reinforcements overwhelmed them.

[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, and 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.

Vortex was aboard a drop ship inbound for Jenova City. They were landing outside the range of the defensive guns the city possessed. This was less a quick strike mission than an inexorable push.

When the landing ramp opened, Reggie strode out, struck by the planet’s beauty. They were protected from shelling by sweeping cliffs below an azure sky streaked with clouds. It was so much like Earth that Reggie wondered what the requirements might be for switching a faction headquarters. After all, Green Zone was merely a glorified smuggler base or mercenary den. This was a living, breathing planet with cities and a population of NPCs numbering in the millions.

[Primary Objective: Force the Surrender of Jenova City to Wounded Legion Alliance]

[Secondary Objective: Zero Civilian Casualties]

“Nice world you live in, King,” Pounder99 said. Though Reggie was the figurehead, Pounder99 was in charge of all but the one platoon with Vortex in it. “Not sure we’re going to pull it off, though.”

“I put that into every mission targeting a population center,” Reggie replied. “Maybe we can’t hit it every time, but it feels damn good when we do.”

“You hear that, everyone?” Pounder99 said. “No digital war crimes today.”

There were chuckles from Reggie’s radio speaker. He felt his cheeks warm.

Was it that different for everyone else? Was he the only one who got sucked into Armored Souls so deeply that he felt bad killing digital arrangements of data with all the personality of a flight check-in kiosk at the airport?

TARGET DATA ACQUIRED

Reggie’s mini-map lit with more information than he could process. It took several zooms in to get the individual blips to separate into distinct juggernauts with their combat designations visible. Without knowing the names of all his allies’ juggernauts, he kept the display set to player ID instead.

“Slow and steady win the battle,” Reggie radioed to everyone. “Mecha Frenzy has six other planets and seven other cities to worry about. We’re not expecting a major reinforcement action here. If we draw the short straw, I’ll give the order to dig in and wait for backup of our own.”

There were three drop ships left in orbit, waiting for word that one of the planetside operations needed assistance. It was amazing that they were gamers. Reggie hadn’t met many who would take an assignment that might amount to playing twenty questions for hours while never getting called up for duty.

Semper Fi were just wired a little differently.

Shells rained down. Reggie followed standard evasive procedures, varying his speed and heading just enough so that shells with an eight-second flight time couldn’t know where he’d be. Here and there, one of the juggernauts in the assault team took some damage from one.

But this wasn’t a fight that was going to be won or lost by artillery.

“We have units designed for close quarters,” Reggie radioed. “Once we spot the defenders, let’s turn this into a fight in a phone booth.”

“The hell’s a phone booth?” one of Pounder99’s guys radioed back.

Reggie couldn’t tell whether the guy was serious or just giving him a hard time. “It’s a porta-potty with a cell phone stuck to the wall instead of a shitter.”

“Roger that,” the same guy called back. “Galoshes engaged. Ready to wade into the shit.”

Sniper fire sizzled through the ranks as someone with an Anti-Matter Projector took position at Jenova’s outskirts. The first shot missed, luckily.

“Hex KP-1021,” someone announced, spotting the sniper’s location. Reggie took a visual and picked out a Shinigami poised atop a high-rise apartment building.

“LRM batteries, remove it,” Reggie ordered. He put a hand to his forehead as a wave of dizziness overcame him. But the episode passed quickly, and he blinked to recover his sense of the battlefield.

The sky filled with propellant trails left by the outbound long-range missiles. Reggie watched the tactical display, highlighting a wire frame for the sniper in the Shinigami on that rooftop.

There was an afterimage of red and yellow in Reggie’s vision, a remnant of the fraction of a second between the first missile hitting and the Shinigami exploding.

“Get among those buildings,” Reggie radioed out. “Happy hunting. Take out anything we didn’t bring with us.”

“But mind the civvies,” Pounder99 reminded everyone. “Treat ‘em like it was your kids in there playing Dolly Dress-up or Train Town.”

Much as he could tell by the marine lieutenant’s tone that he didn’t take these NPCs as anything more than cardboard cutouts, he appreciated that Reggie felt better running his ops like it was a real city with real people inside.

Wounded Legion’s alliance came on like the tide, and the sea wall of Jenova City wasn’t remotely prepared to stop them. Pounder99 drove a Titan at the front lines, willing to risk being taken out of the action in order to be at the heart of it. Reggie, by mutual agreement, hung in the middle of the pack to lessen the chances of a sniper like that Shinigami taking out the alliance’s leader.

Given the choice of dozens of targets, who would assume the Wolverine pilot was running the show?

About the time that Reggie was getting in among the skyscrapers at the city’s heart, the messages started popping up.

[Melmond Prime Captured by Wounded Legion]

Funny, but Reggie had never been absent for one of his team’s victories before. He’d always assumed the message would look the same as for the ones forcing the surrender. But that was always a mission objective. Reggie had no mission on Melmond Prime. He was just the one leading the faction who’d taken it.

Staring at the message, Reggie muttered beneath his breath. “Nice work, Chipz.”

[Pravoka Captured by Wounded Legion]

“Nice one,” Pounder99 radioed over his private channel to Reggie. “Since it was your guys who took it, mind getting ‘em to route that garrison of Kintaros and Chi-Tos this way? By the time they get here, we’ll have at least a couple cities in hand for them to defend.”

“On it,” Reggie confirmed. He switched over to a long-range frequency and signaled Monty. “Get that garrison spaceborne. We need those defenders here.”

“Things going badly?” Monty asked with a worried note in his voice.

“Nothing of the sort,” Reggie said. “I’ve got a planet with eight cities here, and it’s going to be the prime target for Mecha Frenzy to take back once night falls in Asia.”

Vortex rocked under an impact.

Vortex Torso: 68/80

“Dammit!” Reggie snapped, switching off his call with Monty. “Why’s everything got Mass Drivers when they shoot at me?”

His instinct was to trade fire with the Kintaro two blocks down, crouched behind an office building. Instead, he ducked behind the sky-rise apartment nearest him and circled around. Reggie was getting an inkling.

Somewhere out there, Frank was sitting in a nursing home with some weary caretaker spooning oatmeal or pudding into his mouth while he tried to talk her ear off about hippie music or the right way to make love to a prostitute. June had implied that he wasn’t always lucid out there in the real world. Armored Souls was where he felt like himself.

Today, Reggie was feeling a little Frank. He drew the juggernaut-sized Ninjato from the electromagnetic clamp on Vortex’s back that served as a sheath. Stalking was an iffy concept in a 65-ton walking tank, but Reggie had the advantage of dozens of other combatants cluttering the city and explosives detonating from all directions.

He didn’t need to be silent. Reggie just needed to be quieter than the rest of the war zone.

The pilot of the Kintaro spotted Reggie at the last second. It spun and swung its left-arm Mass Driver around to fire at Reggie point blank.

There was no target reticule. The Ninjato in Vortex’s grasp mimicked Reggie’s hand movements when he pulled the steering stick out of the console, tethered by an optical cable. With a swipe of his wrist, Reggie brought the blade across and turned the Kintaro’s arm.

And not coincidentally, took a chunk out of its armor.

Kintaro[16] Left Arm: 14/30

A medium juggernaut sword was designed to do 15 points of damage, but Frank’s workmanship had upped this particular specimen to 16. With a Kintaro as an opponent, that was perfect. It meant that Reggie’s follow-up downward chop removed Kintaro[16]’s arm at the elbow.

If this was to be a brawl, the observer sizing up the fight on a spreadsheet might think that the heavy juggernaut would have the edge. However, the Wolverine was the largest class of medium juggernaut, with a baseline weight of 65 tons. The Kintaro was the lightest of heavies at 70.

And Reggie was armed with a sword.

And Vortex had both arms.

As the Kintaro attempted to bull rush Vortex, Reggie focused on Kintaro[16]’s legs. Three chops took the right leg out from under it. Reggie pulled back to keep out of the thing’s flailing reach as he hammered down on it with blow after blow until he’d caved in the cockpit.

Meanwhile, the battle for Jenova City had been raging all around him. The Mecha Frenzy forces were scattering like a freshman kegger when the cops show up.

[Midgar VII Captured by Mile High]

Mile High? They hadn’t discussed disposition of systems prior to the assault. Someone from that faction must have been the one to demand the surrender. Still, as long as they were allied, Reggie’s troops could use the cheap upgrades for their energy weapons.

“I’ve got a clear shot to the planetary capital,” one of the Semper Fi pilots reported. “Permission to take this fight to the ground.”

“Permission granted,” Reggie said. “Unconditional. No exceptions.”

The last thing Reggie needed was a complicated web of rules to satisfy before the AI would relinquish control.

[Shinra City Captured by Semper Fi]

“Your people do good work,” Reggie radioed over to Pounder99.

“People say marines eat, breathe, and shit fighting,” Pounder99 replied. “Well, this game just adds sleeping to that list.”

[Mysidia IV Captured by Wounded Legion]

Reggie grinned and switched frequencies yet again. He was practically becoming and old-fashioned telephone switchboard operator. But this was a call to June, so it lessened the annoyance at the constant channel hopping. “Congrats. Great…”

She hadn’t answered. The line was dead. Reggie waited.

A lump formed in his throat. Despite the raging battle, Reggie pulled back into cover and pulled up a menu.

[Faction > Roster > News (44) > Rewards > Info]

Reggie tapped on the roster link and sorted by location.

He didn’t have to scan far to see the entry he was both looking for and dreading.

[June - Offline (Deceased)]

“Shit,” he muttered. And here he’d been having a little moment of triumph, crushing back Mecha Frenzy forces and stealing planets across their territory. She must have been on one of the worlds where Liberty Clan chose to fight back.

Or maybe she’d gotten unlucky. Either way, the victory wouldn’t be as sweet without her there to celebrate with.

[Primary Objective Complete: Force the Surrender of Jenova City to Wounded Legion Alliance]

[Mission Successful - 23,500 XP - 20,000Cr]

Across the city, gunfire ceased. Mecha Frenzy silver trim shifted to Wounded Legion khaki wherever faction colors flew.

Despite June’s sacrifice, Reggie still needed to see it for himself.

[Green Zone]

[Tirith]

[Melmond]

[Pravoka]

[Mysidia IV]

Nibelheim wasn’t theirs yet. But for now, they controlled the city. Once they’d established ownership of all eight, this planet would belong to Wounded Legion as well.

“Congratulations, King,” Pounder99 radioed. “Nice work.”

Reggie mustered his enthusiasm. Far be it from him to seem even the slightest bit ungrateful after all Semper Fi had done for him. “Thanks, Brent. You guys are a pleasure to work with.”

“Aw, that’s only because you don’t know us yet,” Pounder99 replied jovially. “Sit us around a boring base on some planet, and you’ll be dying to let us off the chain again.”

Despite the sting of celebrating this victory without June, Reggie smirked. “No point waiting for the others to finish up. Call in those drop ships, and let’s take this party on the road.”

Chapter Fifty-Nine

As tempting as it had been to take the newly captured planet Nibelheim as Wounded Legion’s headquarters, there was a 72-hour blackout on designating a new holding. Since a faction’s main holding was impervious to attack, that prevented suicide attacks that capture a planet with no hope of keeping it other than to designate it their headquarters.

So it was that after the battled died down and the beers flowed at a fancy pub in downtown Jenova city, Reggie found his way back to the Green Zone and collapsed in his quarters. Taking up the tablet computer from his bedside table, he checked his messages.

[Faction > Roster > News (71) > Rewards > Info]

With a sigh, Reggie took a pass through his news feed, killing standardized messages and updates about conquests he was already aware of.

[Faction > Roster > News (21) > Rewards > Info]

Curiosity getting the better of him, Reggie found the first message from Freedom Coach Napoleon:

“Think you’re pretty smart, huh, dumb-ass? Baby got some friends together to fight his war for him? Liberty Clan is the land of the free and the home of the brave. You can’t beat us. We’ve still got you outnumbered. Your coward war crime tactics are FAIL TRAIN. I’ll come visit you in Loserville, but I won’t stay long, sucker.”

Not exactly the Freedom Coach at his most eloquent. Reggie smirked at the screen. “You’re the one who brought in friends first, punk.”

He scanned down to the next message from Napoleon. The time stamp put it shortly after the main landing force arrived on Nibelheim.

“More coward tactics. Just diversion. Coward plan. Come fight us like men, bro. With clan names like Semper Fi, your buddies ought to act like marines, not cocksuckers.”

Reggie was tempted to forward the message to Lt. Cutler just for a laugh. Then he realized that he might be putting some poor, scrawny, low self-esteem troll in danger out in the real world. Deep down, he knew none of the marines would stoop to hurting the guy, but the last thing he needed was to drag this business back to the real world by making it personal.

He skipped down to the next message, once Wounded Legion started taking planets.

“You and your friends are so cute. Maybe you thought you could win. Enjoy the sightseeing. Those planets are coming right back to us. You just watch.”

Then there was another just after the last city fell and Nibelheim switched to Wounded Legion control.

“Nice. Pick on a faction that’s on America Time, why don’t ya? Mecha’s gonna take that place back first thing after logging in tonight. Don’t get comfortable. Keep your dirty feet off the furniture. Plus, I’m pretty sure you hacked the defenses at Mysidia IV. I’m putting in a support ticket. Bet you don’t see this thanks to your BAN, cheater.”

For now, that was the last of Napoleon’s ranting, but there was a separate message from AmuroRay, leader of the Mecha Frenzy faction:

“Why have you attacked only us? Liberty Clan has attacked you more and taken more. Please reclaim lost planets from them before taking from us. Have a nice war. Please do not be unfair in the future. kthx. AmuroRay.”

Pretty good English from someone who presumably didn’t speak it natively. Reggie couldn’t resist a reply, however. He tapped it into his tablet.

“Greetings, AmuroRay. I don’t know what Freedom Coach Napoleon promised you to join this war, but I assure you that you are going to lose more than you gain. Every day you wake up to go to work, you will have to wonder how many planets you’ll be missing when you come back. I imagine it will take weeks or months to reverse the damage you are about to suffer. You joined an alliance against a smaller, weaker faction, and now you are no longer at an advantage. If you end your alliance with Liberty Clan, I will consider making peace with just you. Freedom Coach Napoleon will stand alone. If you continue in your alliance, I promise you we will focus on Mecha Frenzy every night. War isn’t fair. Reggie King, Sgt. US Army. (I know from experience).”

Reggie relaxed, sitting at the head of his bed and slumping against the wall with the catharsis of having put the ball in Mecha Frenzy’s court. A short while later, there was a knock at his door.

“What’s up?” he asked.

Chase poked his head in. “June’s back. You know, in case that sort of thing interests you.”

Reggie was up as if he’d been spring-loaded.

He found her milling around the rec room, chatting with some of the newer Wounded Legion members and a pair of lingering faction leaders waiting for a briefing on their next mission.

“Hey!” Reggie called out as he entered. “Look who’s back among the living.”

June glanced his way, forced a smile, and resumed her conversation.

Reggie drifted in, trying to be cool about it.

“I think we continue our attacks on Mecha Frenzy first thing tomorrow night,” Pounder99 was saying when Reggie came within earshot. “Turn the screws. Really make them see the price they’re paying for their alliance with L-Clan.”

He got a kick out of Brent’s reluctance to ascribe the name “Liberty” to them.

“Backup plan,” Reggie said, joining in a conversation that certainly concerned him as faction leader. “I’m going to be hanging out in game today. I expect that by the time you log back in, I’ll have negotiated a peace deal with Mecha Frenzy. I don’t think their hearts are in it.”

“We should have a plan in place to hit them again, in case they don’t,” Pounder99 said.

Reggie gave a nod. “Agreed. I’ll find one or two new targets. We’ll take those plus any they recapture during the daylight hours in North America. We need to prove they can’t dictate which of their worlds they keep. Once we invade them, they’re ours to keep or trade back.”

Chase snickered. Reggie was glad to see him warming up to the military leaders. “I’m guessing that you’re going to trade them Nibelheim back for a nice juicy peace deal.”

Pounder99 scratched at the back of his neck. “Why would you do a thing like that? They can’t take it from us. Hell, we emptied out that garrison at Pravoka to defend it.”

“Love to keep it,” Reggie said. “But it’s a stepping-stone. If we can get Mecha and the Dogs out of this war, we can carve up Liberty Clan like a birthday cake.”

“Longer war, more loot,” Pounder99 argued. “I wouldn’t advise cutting any sweetheart deals. I’m willing to slog this thing out.”

Reggie shook his head. “Wars don’t get judged on points. The longer this thing drags, the more chances for Napoleon to come up with a ploy to even the odds.”

Pounder99 scoffed. “Like what? He’s no tactical genius.”

Chase crossed his arms. “Oh? And what if he gave the head of say… Metal Muscle a record deal? That alliance could wreck us in their sleep.”

“Record deal?” Pounder99 echoed skeptically.

“I did some digging,” Chase said. “Real world. Freedom Coach Napoleon owns a small indie record label in New York.”

“He’s a music exec?” Reggie asked. “What the hell would a guy like that be doing here? Wouldn’t he have his hands full running a company?”

Chase shrugged. “He’s asleep. There’s only so much a guy can do without a way to blow off steam. He’s a small potato in his business. Maybe this makes him feel like a big man. Point is, there are ways to leverage non-traditional resources. If we turn the screws too slowly, Napoleon might slip out of the trap.”

Pounder99 jutted his jaw and scowled. “Maybe the kid’s right. I’ll leave any negotiations to you, King. If they don’t bite, we smack ‘em down again tomorrow. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a morning briefing to prepare for.” He saluted and took his leave.

As the informal gathering broke up, Reggie chased down June as she was heading for her quarters. “Hey. You all right?”

“Me?” June asked, blinking. “Um. Yeah. No, I’m fine. Really.”

Reggie’s stomach clenched. “It’s Frank, isn’t it? Something happened. You found out while you were logged out.”

June’s smile was weak and sickly—weary, even. “No. Frank’s fine. His grandkids are douchebags, but he’s fine. No word on when he’ll be back, but it’s Valhalla West and the US Army versus a bunch of ingrate Gen X moochers fighting over their inheritance while Frank’s still alive.”

“Inheritance?” Reggie asked dubiously. “Frank doesn’t strike me as the estate-leaving type.”

“It’s not mansions and private jets, but Frank’s apparently been a tightwad for most of his life,” June said. “The VA covers his medical expenses, so that’s not eating at his savings. It’s just a bunch of scattered old stocks and bank accounts earning interest for a long time.” June sighed. “And the point of contention is that he met with a lawyer in Valhalla West’s lounge zone to rewrite his will and leave it to Chase.”

He couldn’t have heard that right. “Chase? The one he’s disapproved of from day one? The one he’s always ragging on and arguing with?”

June’s smile warmed slightly. She was almost selling it now, but there was still something bothering her. “And yet, he’d still rather Chase get the money than his own family. Oh, and this is all confidential. You can’t tell Chase. OK?”

Reggie nodded. “But that’s not what’s been bothering you since you got back.”

June looked away. “It’s nothing. Just… work stuff.”

“Work doesn’t usually bother you like this,” Reggie pointed out.

“Work isn’t always pretty,” June admitted. “But some days are tougher than others. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. You’ve got a lot of planning to do. I won’t keep you from it.”

June waved, then, right before Reggie’s eyes, disappeared. He hadn’t even noticed her tapping the logout command.

Chapter Sixty

Reggie’s negotiations with AmuroRay were brief, pointed, and one-sided. AmuroRay wanted Reggie to focus more of his attacks on Liberty Clan since they were the ones who declared war. Reggie pointed out that he could conduct the war however he liked, and that Mecha Frenzy was in no position to stop them.

Once they had an agreement in principle to negotiate peace, Reggie drew a line in the sand. He wasn’t giving back Nibelheim. He wasn’t giving up Melmond. Trading back Mysidia IV hurt since June died taking it, but it wasn’t as if death was permanent in Armored Souls. Ceding control of Pravoka wasn’t painful at all since they’d only really wanted control of the NPC juggernauts stationed there and long since relocated them all.

Now it was just the Wounded Legion Alliance versus Liberty Clan and the D-O-Double-Gs of War.

Tonight, it was the Dogs’ turn to feel the weight of Reggie’s alliance against them.

There were two primary targets and eighteen that would be receiving nothing but a drop ship filled with a single NPC platoon that would bug out at the first sign of resistance. The catch: all eighteen were in Liberty Clan space. Only the two real targets belonged to the D-O-Double-Gs of War.

Despite being a little uncertain that she was OK after her rough logout, Reggie entrusted June with representing Wounded Legion in the fight for Chronic Prime. He was taking command of the landing team headed for Ginjui IV.

Eighty drop ships.

The Wounded Legion Alliance was split roughly in half, with over 400 juggernauts under his command. It was, frankly, an incredible high being in charge of so many eager soldiers looking to carry the victory for his cause. And the fact that nearly every pilot in the alliance was logged in and ready to rock and roll was unprecedented.

Reggie had studied the enemy. They were—prior to Mecha Frenzy’s exit, at least—three fairly active factions with login rates over 80 percent. Right now, 98 percent of the Wounded Legion Alliance was participating in this action, and without Mecha Frenzy, Freedom Coach Napoleon couldn’t match their numbers.

“Two minutes to landing,” Reggie called out over the team-wide radio channel. As grand battle commander, he could only imagine the total effect of his Command Radius 5 perk. It would only be limited by how many of the allied juggernauts he could keep within 1,600m range.

Reggie reminded himself to bear that in mind before he went off on any Silent-Shuriken-inspired sword fights. One lucky shot by an enemy combatant and the alliance would be missing out on +5 Gunnery skill across the board, not to mention the lesser bonuses to piloting and tactical relays.

The drop ship hit the ground alongside the rest of the assault team.

[Primary Objective: Force the Surrender of Ginjui IV to Wounded Legion Alliance]

[Secondary Objective: Zero Civilian Casualties]

Pounder99 snickered. “Gotta love those digital civilians, eh King?”

“You try living in a digital world for a few months without being able to log out,” King radioed back. “Then tell me you’re sure they’re not real people.”

“Copy that,” Pounder99 replied. “Can’t say I get it, but… I kinda get it. And would you mind adding a kill counter? My boys were complaining last time about flying a little blind.”

Reluctantly, Reggie set Vortex on a series of way points and headed into the mission generator.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 0/275]

“Now we’re talkin’!” one of the Semper Fi pilots cheered.

Ginjui IV was unlike Nibelheim in that it had a single massive population center. Buildings spread like a carpet across a vast prairie, dotted with clusters of skyscrapers here and there marking denser districts. Elevated rails ran all throughout with illuminated glass tubes that lit the evening sky.

“We’ve got numbers,” Pounder99 radioed to everyone. “But this is a wide area. Platoons stick together. Don’t get separated or let your platoon mates wander off. If I’ve gotta lojack you boys to keep track of you, I’ll do it. Don’t make me do it.”

As the Wounded Legion Alliance closed in on Ginjui City, Reggie watched the mini-map. The hex designations always referred to the local area, so he was accustomed to seeing the letters and numbers cap out in the low hundreds or the fourth pass through the alphabet on most missions.

Vortex was aimed to enter the city limits at LA-420.

On the far side of Ginjui City, somewhere around HP-97, NPC pilots from the D-O-Double-Gs of War engaged.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 1/275]

“First blood to the good guys,” Chase called out on his private channel with Reggie. It was nice having a familiar voice around. With June and Lin off on Chronic Prime along with most of the Wounded Legion regulars, Reggie was otherwise on his own with just Semper Fi troops.

Not that they were bad guys, or even all that different than the soldiers Reggie had spent his career hanging around. They just weren’t familiar. They weren’t friends like Chase, June, Lin, and Frank—poor Frank. Maybe one day that would change, but for today, Reggie was glad to have Chase by his side.

TARGET DATA ACQUIRED

Here they were. The D-O-Double-Gs of War NPCs had arrived at the southeastern portion of the city to meet the Wounded Legion Alliance assault.

Reggie forced himself to hang back in the shadow of Pounder99’s Titan as the Semper Fi commander opened fire with a pair of Anti-Matter Projectors that had to have come damn close to overheating him after even a single volley.

“Good man,” Chase coaxed him. “Keep safe. Keep that bonus up. The rest of us are a lot more use with you Command Radiusing at us than firing at them. Don’t be a target.”

It struck him now that Pounder99 wasn’t running a Command spec. Even with so many troops under his command, Pounder99 was a fighter first, last, and always. His nametag read, “Pounder99, Gunner 20.”

This was why so few players were cut out for command. The Command build demanded a dedication to the overall mission at the expense of self. It demanded that a player sacrifice their own contribution—no, it demanded their contribution become the increased success of everyone under them. Reggie didn’t get flashy critical hit warnings like Lin had described or often experience the adrenaline rush he’d gotten that one time he’d chanced upon a sword fight.

Reggie hadn’t fired the gun on his Abrams tank outside of a training operation in years. It had been years before that since he’d driven one in battle. Reggie’s primary weapons had been a pair of binoculars and a radio.

These were Pounder99’s troops, but the marine lieutenant would have more fun fighting beside them than organizing them. Reggie had left the coordinating to Semper Fi’s commander last battle, but this time he was going to do as Pounder99 had hinted at obliquely and “let him off the chain.” That wasn’t a request for his faction as much as for him personally.

Reggie understood that now.

Time to step up and lead them.

“Omicron Platoon, head for Lima-Lima-four-zero-four. Intercept two Wyverns inbound from the north,” Reggie ordered. “Zeta Platoon, back up Kappa Platoon at Lima-Bravo-three-niner-eight. Maroon Platoon, I want you covering the elevated rail station at Lima-Hotel-four-zero-zero. Intel indicates a possibly armed civilian population. If they’re reinforcing with ground troops, that would be the quickest way for them to get here.”

“Roger that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Copy that.”

Reggie flashed back to his days trying to run missions with an NPC platoon. It was like digging in sand. These marines followed orders eagerly and fought like demons.

“Drop ships!” came the call over the radio. Someone named BivouacBen had just earned himself a 5,000Cr bonus for being the first to spot them. “Clustered on the city center.”

Reggie watched the kill counter as the Liberty Alliance reinforcements approached.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 32/275]

They were making good progress. How long that lasted depended on how many juggernaut pilots Freedom Coach Napoleon and Chief Gangsta SnoopDaddy had rallied to the defense. If they were lucky, most of their resources had been diverted to the many decoy raids back in Liberty Clan territory.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 33/315]

Forty… Reggie counted silently.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 33/335]

Sixty…

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 33/395]

Those were just the lead ships. More continued to land, jacking up the number to worrying levels.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 35/662]

“That’s nearly four hundred reinforcements,” Chase remarked with a nervous edge in his voice. “I… don’t think they fell for it.”

Not only had they not fallen for the ruse this time, this had to be the bulk of their logged-in forces. In fact, Reggie was surprised they even had this many to bring. Then it struck him. “They’re hiring mercs to shore up their numbers.”

“Make the call,” Pounder99 radioed on the commanders’ frequency. “We’re short about two hundred bodies, but a chunk of those are AI. The other half of the alliance ought to have it easy over on Chronic Prime.”

Before he could answer, Reggie received a holographic call from Freedom Coach Napoleon. “Well, fancy seeing you here in person. I had a fifty-fifty chance, and it looks like it’s my lucky day. You may have scared off one ally, but I’ve got deep pockets.”

“Gotta pay for friends?” Reggie asked, clucking his tongue. “So sad.”

Freedom Coach Napoleon cocked his head and sneered. “Just so you know, I put a 2,000,000Cr bounty on that wreck you pilot. Every merc in the galaxy wanted in on this action. You’re a dead man. So sad.” His mimicry of Reggie included trying to match his voice on those parting words.

Switching back to address his whole assault team, Reggie announced his decision. “I’m diverting all the drop ships to a rendezvous point centered on Juliet-Tango-one-zero-six. DO NOT WITHDRAW. They’re expecting us to run. We’re going to fight. The drop ship move is just a diversion. I understand that Liberty Clan has placed a 2,000,000Cr bounty on me personally. Let’s make use of that. Expect a number of ill-advised and overextended maneuvers to take me out. Prepare to counter.”

“I like it,” Pounder99 replied privately. “Ballsy. Win or lose, thanks for putting it on us to fight it out.”

“You’re an idiot,” Chase replied privately. “But a devious idiot. Mind if I hang out near you and farm kills?”

“By all means,” Reggie said. “Odds are, though, someone’s going to get me.”

[Faction]

[Commander]

[Appoint Backup]

Reggie selected Chase.

“What’s that?” Chase asked right after Reggie made it official.

“June’s got her own mission tonight,” Reggie replied. “If and when those mercs get through and collect that bounty, I want you to take over.”

“What about Pounder?” Chase asked. “He’s a goddamn marine! What business have I got giving him orders?”

“You’re a player. So’s he. Day jobs are just background stories here. I trust you. You’ve got a head for this stuff. I’m not half as devious as you.”

Chase sighed into his mic. “Roger, wilco. If you just did this to make me try a little extra hard to keep you alive though, well played.”

The fighting was building to building. Reggie remained out of visual contact with enemy forces whenever possible, using the tall buildings and irregularly angled intersections to cover and mask his movements. The longer he was able to give his Command Radius 5 bonus to friendly juggernaut pilots, the better the fight would go for the friendlies.

“Jekson and Babbit, reform with Figaro Platoon,” Reggie ordered, making the assignment official on his command console. “Meet up with them at Lima-Charlie-three-five-niner.”

“Reggie, behind you!” Chase shouted, already opening fire with Diablo.

A Vulture had made its way through the Wounded Legion Alliance ranks and gotten the jump on him. It unloaded a flurry of SRMs and was taking aim with a Beam Cannon-S before Reggie could react.

Diablo slammed into it.

Reggie couldn’t believe his eyes. This was the first time he could remember Chase engaging in melee combat in a juggernaut. His Jackal was larger than the Vulture he tackled, but it wasn’t a horrible mismatch. Drawing the Ninjato made by Frank’s hand, he charged in to make sure the odds didn’t even out.

“No!” Chase scolded him. “Stay back! You’re holding this effort together.”

Reggie ignored him. What good was being a commander if you weren’t there to bring your troops through the battle as best you could?

Before he got three steps, one of Pounder99’s men blocked his path with a Rhino. “Sorry, sir. Orders from Pounder. Keep you safe at all costs. That command bonus of yours is like meth. Um… not that I’d know anything about that, mind you. Just an analogy. That’s all.”

Reggie fumed. Short of attacking the Rhino himself, there was nothing he could do to get around it in time to help Chase. He watched Diablo’s wire frame as the two juggernauts on the ground wrestled. The cheeky bastard had unloaded more SRMs at point-blank range causing heavy damage to both juggernauts. If he did that a couple more times, neither would survive the encounter.

“I’ll stay put,” Reggie snapped at the Rhino pilot. “You get in there and help with that Vulture.”

To his relief, the Rhino did just that.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 95/662]

Reggie checked the assault team’s numbers. They’d come with 402 juggernauts. They had 472 left. By his quick math, they were still outnumbered, but the odds were slowly shifting in their favor.

Diablo climbed to its feet after Chase and the Rhino pilot disposed of the daring Vulture. The red-painted mech looked as if it’d been left in the toaster too long.

“You’re out of the fighting,” Reggie radioed Chase. “Backup and command duties only.”

“Roger that,” Chase said with a weary huff. “Not a lot of armor left on this thing as it is.”

The Wounded Legion Alliance closed in on the city center like a noose.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 114/662]

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 125/662]

They still had 465 juggernauts of their own left fighting.

Some of the tallest skyscrapers Reggie had seen in game loomed on all sides, making New York look like a suburb. The streets became canyons. And without the long straight stretches Manhattan was known for, the sight lines were all blind. Reggie had to rely entirely on the mini-map and updates from the other juggernauts in his vicinity for intel on anything beyond a block or two from his location.

The Rhino pilot was still puppy-dogging Vortex, following wherever he went. It was a mild annoyance until it bumped into him from behind.

“Watch where you’re—”

“Look out, sir!” the Rhino pilot shouted.

A Phoenix slammed to the ground beside him, having jumped down from the rooftops high above and barely surviving thanks to Jump Boost.

Chase fired Plasma Launchers at it.

Phoenix[37] Left Leg: 4/20

Phoenix[37] Left Leg: Destroyed

Reggie brought down his Ninjato, hacking off an arm after landing two quick blows. The Rhino finished off the Phoenix with a stomp.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 126/662]

Then a Crow fell from the rooftops.

Then a Wyvern.

Both narrowly missed Vortex, clearly intent on crushing him to earn the 2,000,000Cr bounty.

Chase and the Rhino finished off both.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 128/662]

“Reggie, move!” Chase shouted.

This time, Reggie spotted the falling Lion. How the heavy juggernaut had gotten to the top of one of those skyscrapers was anyone’s guess. Props to the guy, though. Reggie tried to dodge, but a mid-air burst of Jump Boost and the Lion pilot adjusted his fall.

Reggie’s game went blank.

Chapter Sixty-One

UNABLE TO LOG OUT; USER BODY NOT AVAILABLE

ERROR CODE: 0x00000020; AUTO-RELOG ATTEMPT01

UNABLE TO LOG OUT; USER BODY NOT AVAILABLE

ERROR CODE: 0x00000020; AUTO-RELOG ATTEMPT02

UNABLE TO LOG OUT; USER BODY NOT AVAILABLE

ERROR CODE: 0x00000020; AUTO-RELOG ATTEMPT03

>

Reggie held his breath—or tried. He lacked a body of any sort. The text floated through his consciousness like a dream. The ominous, blinking prompt terrified him with its vague promise of obedience intermixed with the lack of any suggested course of action.

“Relog?” Reggie asked tentatively.

> RELOG

The words appeared without typing, as if an unseen secretary was taking his dictation.

REBOOT; SYSTEM RELOG IN PROCESS

PERSONALITY BACKUP SYNCHRONIZING

SYNCHRONIZING

SYNCHRONIZING

PERSONALITY BACKUP MATCHED

DIGITAL ARCHIVE COPY SAVED

RESUMING…

[Relog options: Apartment - Armored Souls - Silent Shuriken - More Options]

The familiar options had barely popped up into Reggie’s consciousness before he leaped to press “Apartment.”

The world went dark once more.

Chapter Sixty-Two

Reggie’s apartment wasn’t there. Or at least, that wasn’t where Reggie ended up after selecting it from his options to relog.

He was seated on the end of his bed in the hospital where he’d first awakened following his battlefield injury. While it wasn’t the real world, it was at least familiar, if not a welcome change of venue.

Dr. Zimmerman knocked on the open door to alert Reggie of his presence before stepping inside. “Hello, Sgt. King,” he said with that smile he wore like part of the uniform.

“What am I doing here, Doc?” Reggie asked. “I was getting some weird error messages between getting fragged in Armored Souls and winding up here. Had me worried for a minute there.”

Footsteps outside the door preceded the entry of Ken Bradley. He looked out of place in this simulation, wearing an Armored Souls promotional T-shirt and baggy jeans. “I can field that one.”

“Are you sure?” Zimmerman asked. “This really is more my department.”

Heeled shoes clacked on the hard, cold hospital floors, and June entered the room, dressed in her nurse’s uniform. “What happened? Reggie wasn’t supposed to be back here? I thought you were going to find a quiet time to take him aside.”

“We ran into a technical glitch,” Zimmerman said.

“What glitch?” Reggie asked, worried that somehow he wasn’t going to be able to get back to Armored Souls.

“It’s not a glitch!” Ken Bradley shouted, silencing everyone. “We brought a guy back from the dead!” He covered his face in his hands and paced the room. “It was all theoretical. It was pie-in-the-sky.”

Reggie felt light-headed. Was this really possible? “You’re talking about Frank, right?” he asked. “Frank died, and you managed to use your techno witch-doctoring to resuscitate him?”

June sat gingerly on the bed beside Reggie and took his hand. “It’s you, Reggie. You died.”

He looked down at himself. There was nothing he saw that wasn’t a computer simulation, he knew. It wasn’t the reassuring anchoring point to reality that he’d hoped for. But if there was one thing that he knew wasn’t a simulation, it was his own mind.

“I’m real.”

June looked him in the eye. Those deep green pinpoints of hope that he could lose himself inside looked so real. So real…

“You are,” June assured him. “You’re as real as any of us.”

Reggie pointed out the window, even though there was no direction that truly aimed back toward the physical world. “But out there, I’m…” he couldn’t say it.

Dr. Zimmerman nodded. “Yes. You’re dead.”

“When did it happen?” Reggie asked.

Dr. Zimmerman tapped on his tablet. “By your reckoning of time, about the point where you were coordinating an assault on Nibelheim.”

June drew him into a hug. “I’m so sorry, Reggie.” He could hear the tears in her voice.

Tentatively, Reggie wrapped his arms around her, feeling the warmth of her body through the fabric of her uniform. Simulated. Every feeling, every sensation, fed into a digital algorithm in a computer somewhere, continuing to lie to Reggie that he was still alive.

“How?” was the only question he could formulate. Then he came up with a second, more relevant one. “Why?”

Ken Bradley talked with his hands, gesturing manically. “Here’s the thing. We don’t know how. We tried. It worked. We’ve got a million—well, really, a trillion—scans of your brain. It’s a learning algorithm. Feed it enough data, and it replicates patterns. It extrapolates. It… behaves like a human brain. It kinda shit the bed when you died in game, but we dove right in and patched it manually. Shouldn’t happen again.”

“You didn’t answer why,” Reggie said firmly. “Why? WHY?” He shrugged loose from June’s embrace and crossed the room in a dash to grab Ken Bradley by the shirt collar and slam him against the wall. “Tell me why you stole my mind and put it in a jar!”

Ken took Reggie firmly by the sides and lifted him as easily as if he were a child, completely unfazed by Reggie’s outburst. “Calm down. Let me explain,” he said, setting Reggie down on his feet beside June. “This is it. This is big. Like, capital ‘B’ big. Up until now, people have been oohing and ahing over a read-only medium. We get simple commands from a human mind. We provide sensory feedback in return. It’s a loop, but that loop has to go through living tissue. Living brain matter.”

Dr. Zimmerman stepped in. “Let me have a try. June here lost her legs some time ago—I know she told you. She had prosthetics in the real world. Does that make her, what… 85 percent human?”

“Of course, not,” Reggie snapped, glaring at Ken Bradley and his “I wrote this world” super strength out of the corner of his eye. “But that’s not—”

“What if she’d lost both arms, too?” Zimmerman asked. “Only 75 percent human? 60?”

“Hey,” June objected. “I’m sitting right here.”

Zimmerman ignored her. “What about soldiers who wind up with a plate in their skull or missing an eye?”

“I’m not missing a part,” Reggie shouted. “I’m dead! All of me is dead.”

Zimmerman’s eyes lit as if Reggie had just caught hold of the threat he was spooling through this labyrinthine explanation. “Yes. Exactly. And until now, we didn’t have a prosthesis for that.” He clasped his hands together earnestly. “Because June and all those other soldiers who came back missing part of themselves… what made them who they are is still there: their personality, their memories, their essence.”

“Their souls?” Reggie asked.

Zimmerman shook his head. “I’m no theologian. I can’t answer that for you. But what I know is this. Here. Now. In this room, you are every bit as much a human being as the rest of us.” He surprised Reggie by suddenly grabbing the sides of his head. “In here, you are alive, thinking, pondering, feeling the rip tide of emotions threatening to sweep you under. I’ll help with that. I’m trained for that. Let Ken’s people wonder how they did it and give themselves rotator cuff injuries patting themselves on the back. You, me, and if you’d like, June, can all help you through this.”

Reggie hung his head. The fake world was spinning around him. “I… I’d always harbored this dream that there would be a cure someday. It might have been years down the road, but I’d wake up like Dorothy after visiting Oz. I’d look up some of my buddies from the game and meet them in real life. I’d… I’d track down June Mallet in the flesh and thank her properly for all she’d done for me. But this… I’m not sure I’m ready for it. I’m not sure this is for me if I’ve got no hope of getting out again.”

Zimmerman and Ken exchanged a look.

“What?” Reggie demanded. “What was that about? Is there something else going on here? What’s the deal?”

Zimmerman patted the air with his hands. “Calm down. It’ll all be fine. There’s no use acting rashly. For now, it might be best if you just went back to Armored Souls and carried on same as ever.”

Rubbing his eyes, he looked at Zimmerman again, in case this was a joke. “Same as ever? I died! There’s no going back to the way things were before, now.”

June took Reggie by the hand and guided him onto the bed beside her. Zimmerman sat down opposite her.

“There are two options for you,” Zimmerman said with deadly earnestness. “You can go back to Armored Souls—or any of the other games, for that matter, including your apartment—or you can remain here in the simulated hospital environment, and you can receive more traditional treatment.”

Reggie sniffed once and wiped his eyes. “What if… what if you just let me… you know… move on? I lost plenty of good men, and none of them got a second chance. I don’t deserve any different than they got. If Sunday School was right, there’s a bunch of guys I wouldn’t mind seeing again, maybe owe some apologies to.”

Zimmerman let out a long sigh. “I’m afraid that isn’t one of your options.”

Reggie scowled. “Why not? It’s my life, dammit.”

Even if he didn’t really want to find out what came next, Reggie resented the idea that it wasn’t his call.

Ken Bradley stepped in. “We’re on a military contract,” he explained. “Top brass are big on this idea of prosthetic soldiers. They can recruit bodies at any high school or strip mall, but turning that body into a solider is big bucks. When you start talking Rangers, SEALs, fighter pilots… I mean, a good fighter pilot costs as much the plane he flies. They hate losing that investment. If they can back you guys up…”

“That’s neither here nor there,” Zimmerman cut it. “The bottom line is: the US Army has put a lot of money behind this project and you don’t get to pull the plug on it. And you shouldn’t want to. You’re being given a gift, a unique second chance. It’s like a retirement theme park with behind-the-curtain access. You ever get sick of Armored Souls, play Silent Shuriken. Ninjas not your thing? Run a bar in Business Mogul. Don’t fancy the corporate life? Be bigger than life in Jukebox Hero.”

Reggie wanted to scream, to sob, to burst out like a sabotaged dam and drown the city below in his fury and frustration. What right did they have to do this to him? Who decided that Valhalla West got to play God?

Standing and shoving back Zimmerman as he attempted to follow, Reggie stalked over to the hospital window and tore the curtains aside. Beyond the glass stretched a grassy lawn and lines of leafy trees afire with fall colors. A parking lot off to one side was filled with cars of makes and models that looked vaguely familiar yet not. Probably something to do with how long he’d been in a coma, missing out on new model years.

“If you wanted to make all those trees barren, put snow on the ground out there, how hard would that be?” Reggie asked. As he watched, the leaves melted from the trees like watercolor. Swirling winds blew past the windows, and when Reggie blinked at the sudden bright white, the world had been grasped by the frozen embrace of winter.

“About that hard,” Ken said.

Reggie turned to look at him. “This is the afterlife I get? Your sandbox? I get to be your little lab rat, and you decide on the maze?”

“Nothing of the sort,” Zimmerman answered the question Reggie had posed to Ken. “We’ll monitor your mental health, but this is a long-term study, not a lab experiment. Between check-ins, your life in the Valhalla West ecosystem is yours to do with as you see fit. Be the man you want to be. See the sights, win the battles, live the life of a hero or a villain, an adventurer or an inventor. You have the time, and nothing’s stopping you.”

Reggie’d had it with both of them. He turned to June. “Is this why you were acting funny? You knew?”

“Last time I died and got forced out, I checked in on you,” June said quietly. “I didn’t know what to say to a dead man. I guess you’re an exception though, in more ways than I know how to count.”

“What do you think I should do?” Reggie said. “Act like nothing happened? Just go back to playing games all the time? Doesn’t it feel like the afterlife should be more than that?”

June smiled sadly. “I’ve never seen you happier than running military operations. Why shouldn’t that be what you get to do with your life, afterlife or otherwise?”

That was a good question. What would Reggie have chosen for himself? Beer and football round the clock? He had that in the rec room or Seattle Lite anytime he wanted. Another chance with Daisy? No, not that. Other women? There was an app for that. But that wasn’t his style.

Reggie looked June in the eye. She didn’t flinch.

War games where no one got hurt or killed. A woman who was there for him even when he turned her away time and again.

“Can we keep this quiet?” Reggie asked somberly. “I don’t know how people will react if they know I’m just an advanced AI at this point.”

June’s lopsided smile told Reggie the answer before she said a word. “Frank got back into the game three days ago, and he found out from this side.”

“Sorry,” Ken said. “That was my bad.”

Reggie sighed. “And because it’s Frank…”

“Yeah,” June said. “Everyone knows.”

“Wait. Hold on. Three days ago?” Reggie asked. “How long was that glitch?”

Ken spread his hands. “We debugged a dead player in under a week. I’m calling that a win for the quality team.”

“Don’t worry,” June said, putting an arm around Reggie’s shoulder. “We didn’t finish the war without you. But we have been taking care of business.” She tapped some unseen console commands in the air, but at the end of them, Reggie’s relog screen came up.

[Relog options: Apartment - Armored Souls - Silent Shuriken - More Options]

Reggie’s finger was halfway to touching the button for Armored Souls when he paused. He had, quite literally, nothing to lose. “Want to come by my place first?”

June nodded, and Reggie tapped the button for “Apartment” instead.

Chapter Sixty-Three

Reggie logged back into Armored Souls hours later feeling like a million bucks. He’d decided he was a lottery winner. His name had gotten scratched off the Grim Reaper’s hit list without him being properly collected. Reggie had dodged a bullet that even Neo couldn’t.

He had to believe that because to believe otherwise might drive him insane.

The less Reggie considered that he had been reduced to a self-aware learning algorithm, the better his chances of leading some kind of life in the simulation. His solution was to throw himself back into the war effort with abandon.

“How we doing, people?” Reggie called out as he entered the War Room in the Green Zone. “Let’s have a look at that map.”

There were cheers and claps on the back, many from people Reggie didn’t even recognize. Chase hugged him. To his surprise, even Lin hugged him. Frank came up with a firm handshake and a greeting of “welcome to the club.”

Reggie pulled Frank aside amid the chaos. “Wait. I thought you were…”

“Nope,” Frank said. “You beat me by two days, but I didn’t get my circuits twisted up in some damn glitch. Kenny-boy thinks he’s got it solved. God help us.”

So Frank was a ghost in the game world now too. Armored Souls was growing more haunted by the day.

“C’mon, King,” Pounder99 said. “Let’s get you up to speed.”

The galactic map flared to life. A time-lapse playback showed the progress of the war while Reggie had been out of commission. It was like watching mold grow on a rotten tomato. The Wounded Legion Alliance spread from the edges of Liberty Clan Coalition space and slowly devoured everything in its path. At one point, a huge chunk of the coalition simply vanished, its color reverting to unfilled neutral space.

“What happened there?” Reggie asked.

“D-O-Double-Gs of War disbanded two days ago,” Chase said. “Chief Gangsta SnoopDaddy couldn’t handle losing every day so he quit like a little biatch.”

There were chuckles around the room at SnoopDaddy’s expense.

“We’ve got them on the run, then,” Reggie concluded after a cursory examination of the war’s progression. “Any sign of Napoleon being ready to surrender?”

“Unconditional?” Pounder99 asked. “No. I’ve started receiving daily threats from the little punk-ass, but he’s only offered terms that include returning all his territory.”

“Plus Schet IX and Alcon Prime,” Chase added. “Which we took back a few days ago.”

Reggie spread his arms. “I’m out of the loop. If you boys and girls have any plans in motion, don’t set them aside on my account.”

Lin snorted. “We’ve been toying with them, waiting until you got back. June said it was only a matter of time, so we held off taking their best planet.”

“Too bad about not being able to take capitals,” Pounder99 said, rubbing his chin. “Love to drag that guy out of his bunker, Saddam style.”

Reggie scowled. He was just as happy that home bases were immune from attack. He’d been reduced to a single holding, and that game balance rule was the only reason they were still standing in the Green Zone right now.

“So what’s this best planet of theirs?” Reggie asked, pointing to the galactic map. “You talking about Hrothgar V?”

Pounder99 grinned. “If you don’t mind me asking, any chance you might let Semper Fi have that one when this is all done? Wouldn’t mind moving my base there. Unless you’d rather Hrothgar than Nibelheim.”

Chase held up a finger. “We can move to Nibelheim anytime you like. I held off since it costs another 250,000Cr to make the switch. Figured we weren’t in danger of losing it.”

Reggie shrugged and held out a hand. “You want Hrothgar? It’s yours. Just let me take it so that Freedom Coach Napoleon sees the message with Wounded Legion’s name on it. I’ll trade it to for 1Cr right after that.”

Pounder99 shook the offered hand. “Deal. Now… let’s get ready to wreck some robots.”

Chapter Sixty-Four

Hrothgar V was the middle planet of the system. Pounder99 and Chase had already masterminded the capture of Hrothgar Prime, and Hrothgar II through IX except for the most populous, most prosperous, and most heavily defended planet in Liberty Clan’s possession.

Whiteout winds whipped across the landing site as the whole mobilized complement of Wounded Legion, Semper Fi, Mile High, Boat Doctors, and 21 Gun Salute turned the wintry tundra into a parking lot. At the bottom of the ramp, Reggie paused.

“You know the plan,” Pounder99 said. “They’ll be gunning for you. I don’t want to see you within two kilos of that mountain until we take out the long-range guns.”

Reggie took a long breath. Right. Command Radius be damned. If Napoleon discovered Reggie was on the ground in range of the city’s guns, nothing on Hrothgar would stop him from taking Vortex out.

That was why there were now eight Wolverines assigned to Wounded Legion with identical blue paints jobs acting as decoys.

“Wouldn’t I be better off helping on the initial assault?” Reggie asked. He was in charge of every aspect of this mission except as related to his own safety.

“Just kick off the missions, King,” Pounder99 said firmly. “You’re the inspiration here. I don’t want this to be a vendetta from the get-go. There’s going to be plenty of fighting in the streets. Don’t worry. You’ll get to put some dents in that sword of yours.”

Smiling, Reggie glanced over at Gremlin, towering over him from a few juggernaut-sized paces away. It was good to have Frank back again, even if he was briefly miffed that Reggie was wielding the sword he’d meant for Chase.

“Roger that,” Reggie said. “Mission incoming.”

[Primary Objective: Capture Hrothgar V by Force]

Liberty Clan had taken the Fanatic trait for their subjects. That meant higher numbers of civilians taking up arms to join the fighting and the local governor never surrendering. They’d have to physically remove all threats before the planet would change ownership.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 0/772]

Most of those would be NPC drones, but the numbers would add up. Napoleon had likely inflated the numbers with a ton of light juggernauts just to disguise his lack of firepower. But there was still the possibility of mercenaries, both on the ground and liable to come in at any moment as reinforcements.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy City Defense Guns 0/44]

It would only take the removal of seventeen for Reggie to have a safe approach from the south. It wasn’t as if Liberty Clan could pick up the stationary guns and relocate them—Reggie was fairly sure, at least.

As he stood watching, the rest of the Wounded Legion Alliance headed for the mountain city of Einarth.

While most of Hrothgar V was desolate mining and resource processing facilities or barren wilderness, Einarth was a wonder to behold. It was a mountain set apart from the surrounding peaks by excavation that had reduced its nearest neighbors to flat bedrock. The city ran in and out of the mountain itself, with as much of the populace living within the mountain as along the carved steps of its exterior.

The vantage Einarth possessed gave it incredible defensive bonuses to range and line of sight. Reggie could only hope that the Piloting bonus he imparted to friendly forces helped them dodge shelling until those gun emplacements could be neutralized.

“So,” Frank said over the platoon radio frequency. “How about them Xenoscythers…”

“Oh my God,” Chase said. “You’ve been watching esports?”

Frank grunted. “Figure I’m a electro-hell resident now. Might as well get to know the local customs. Just like when I was in Korea, I learned to like kimchi.”

Lin intervened before Frank veered too far from his original topic. “‘Scythers will make the finals, but Halon Core is 2:3 against the field to win the whole thing. I’m more interested in how the WarZone 2150 tournament turns out. My friend Rainshaker is in it this year with his clan.”

June contacted Reggie over a closed channel. “How you holding up?”

Though she couldn’t see the gesture, Reggie shrugged. “I’ve been through worse Frank conversations.”

“You know what I mean.”

Reggie gritted his teeth. “I’m. Fine. Better than fine, actually. I don’t have to worry about my body dying back in the real world. Worst happened, and I hardly noticed. Can we please talk about anything else?”

“Esports it is, then,” June relented and closed the private channel.

Frank, Chase, and Lin blabbered on as Reggie watched the battle from the safety of the landing zone.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 3/772]

[Secondary Objective: Destroy City Defense Guns 1/44]

Zooming and scrolling around the vast mini-map describing Einarth City, he located the destroyed gun. It was among the seventeen that needed removal before Reggie was cleared to enter range of the city.

Reggie tapped the control panel to bring up ASHARI and shut off his mic. “Am I fine?” he asked the AI. “Are we the same now, you and me?”

“To the former, I am no longer able to connect to the interface that was being used to monitor your physical brain. Thus, I am no longer able to diagnose your current condition except by observed behavior. You seem perturbed, agitated, and anxious, but I can’t ascribe that to anything besides being excluded from the fighting or annoyance that Lt. Mallet keeps reminding you of your deceased status. As for the latter, there are similarities. However, I was created from scratch while you are mimicking a human brain pattern established by Sgt. Reginald King.”

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 4/772]

Reggie drummed his fingers on the console and chimed in on the conversation often enough so that no one worried about him napping on the job.

Eventually the forces under Pounder99’s command made enough headway that Reggie could see his moment coming.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 64/772]

[Secondary Objective: Destroy City Defense Guns 18/44]

There were eighteen of the guns taken out, but two weren’t covering Reggie’s approach to the mountain fortress city. One left to go.

“Any day now,” Frank said. “Some of us aren’t getting any older, you know.”

Reggie chuckled. “One to go. I’m as eager as you.”

[Secondary Objective: Destroy City Defense Guns 19/44]

Reggie’s heart raced as he checked the map. He found the last gun emplacement that Pounder99 had warned of. That was it. That was the one that had just gone silent.

“We’re a go!” Reggie shouted over the radio. “Alpha Platoon, move out!”

By the time the five of them made it to the city, the battle was in full swing. Liberty Clan juggernauts and mercenaries held the high ground. Their use of the terrain and the network of tunnels into the mountain made them hell to dislodge. Wounded Legion’s allies were forcing their way up the slopes and switchbacks of the city, tightening the noose like a ratchet around Freedom Coach Napoleon’s neck.

Knowing that he was still at risk in close combat, Reggie positioned himself to best make use of the +5 bonus he was giving everyone within 1,600 meters of him and coordinated using the mini-map. He found some of his Wounded Legion regulars and gave them some direction.

“Spike, Chipz, you’ve got a Liberty Clan Jackal the level above you with a Plasma Launcher,” Reggie radioed out. “He’ll have a clear shot at the next intersection if you don’t pull up.”

Vortex pushed in behind the main mass of friendly troops as they slogged uphill against their foes. The frigid outdoor temperatures were enough to cool all but the hottest of weapon loadouts. Reggie wanted little more than to get into the fray and add his Plasma Launchers to the mix.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 80/772]

“Welcome to the battle, Commander!” someone radioed out, breaking communications protocol.

“Bonus time!” another shouted.

Reggie didn’t take the time to figure out who was cluttering the radio with pointless chatter. As more and more of the allied troops joined in, he felt the warm glow of helping out the pilots under his command.

“Don’t know where you’re pressing to open those mics,” Reggie scolded jovially. “But the triggers are at your index fingers and thumbs. Less yapping, more zapping.”

“And later, some tapping,” one of the offending pilots radioed back.

“Aw, yeah!” someone else agreed.

Reggie gave up. He went back to micro-managing engagements that looked like they were about to turn sour.

“Peters, hook up with Cyanide Platoon,” Reggie ordered. “They’re down a man and could use a heavy. Plow them a path up to level 4 at Foxtrot-Echo-one-one-five.”

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 118/772]

“Chase, quit looking up and pay attention to your piloting,” Reggie snapped as Chase blundered into a building. Diablo knocked the awning off a café with its knee, and its shoulder shattered a brick facade.

“Incoming!” Chase shouted. “Look up!”

Lin fired her Anti-Matter Projector.

Phoenix[40] Left Leg: Destroyed

Reggie watched the Phoenix coming with no time to move out of its path. He aimed a Plasma Launcher up by reflex.

[Phoenix[40] - 85% To Hit]

The damn thing was on a collision course. He’d hoped for better. But at the last second, Reggie held his fire. A massive arm knocked Vortex stumbling. The last update before the target indicator lost track of the Phoenix showed a 2 percent chance at hitting.

Frank’s sword did far better than that.

Although the Phoenix was a hefty medium, Frank was poised and aimed impeccably to skewer it. The Phoenix took the 21 base damage from Frank’s handcrafted weapon and added an unknown amount extra from its falling momentum. Reggie couldn’t tell exactly because it punched clean through Phoenix[40]’s torso armor and destroyed it.

Checking the wire frame view of Gremlin, Reggie saw the Tiger’s arm reduced to 20/60 hit points and suffering from an actuator failure.

“Thanks for the save,” Reggie said to Frank.

“Bugger it all,” Frank said. “The damn thing’s stuck.”

After helping Gremlin free its sword from the fallen Phoenix, Reggie followed the dwindling advance up the mountainside. Einarth City was built with the most valuable targets higher up. But Reggie’s main goal was to make his way to the peak to eliminate the intermittent rain of suicide jumpers that tried to take him out personally.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 255/772]

Reggie tried a new tactic as he watched the number of juggernauts on both sides shrinking. “Napoleon,” he radioed out. “Let’s finish this. You and me.”

“Reggie, that was an open channel,” Chase blurted on a private frequency. “Everyone heard that on both sides.”

“C’mon, little man,” Reggie continued, well aware that he was being heard by every pilot on the planet. “You’re losing. Let’s show the server how a it’s done. Meet me at the summit.”

“Nice,” June said over the Alpha Platoon frequency. “Play on his ego to lure Napoleon into a trap.”

“It’s not a trap,” Reggie said. “It’s an ancient tradition. I don’t expect Pounder99 to give this place up if I lose. Not my place to bargain away a planet on my own prowess. I just want a chance to get my giant robotic hands on that guy’s throat before this is over.”

“Roger that,” Frank said. “I’d also approve giving a giant robotic wedgie if you can figure out how.”

Alpha Platoon continued up the mountainside. Semper Fi and Mile High troops parted to let them through after hearing Reggie’s challenge.

“Am I talking to myself?” Reggie radioed out to everyone. “Planet’s lost, kid. Take a shot at me if you want to salvage some pride.”

Napoleon came on, voice only, over Reggie’s radio. “You’ve got some nerve, King! Pretending like you’ve got honor after your attacks dogs tore my freedom empire to shreds. Not responding to any of my requests for a peace deal.”

“I was kind of dead,” Reggie replied bluntly.

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” Napoleon fired back. “Timer’s three hours. It’s been a week.”

“You want a piece of me?” Reggie asked. “Come and get it.”

Chase called on the Alpha Platoon channel. “Reg, you gonna make this into one of those Old West shootouts where everyone else is supposed to just let you two blast at each other until only one is standing?”

“Stand down,” Reggie ordered. He saw a Lion approaching the summit, separating itself from the other Liberty Clan forces. “Let that Lion up here, and don’t interfere unless I give the order.”

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 310/772]

The battle was half over, at least by enemy count. Unless they ran and hid, playing hide-and-seek inside the mountain, the last enemy units would go down much quicker than the first.

Reggie made a quick check of the Wounded Legion Alliance as the Lion climbed the mountain from the far side. There were still over seven hundred friendly juggernauts. This wasn’t going to cost them the battle if Reggie lost. He could afford to vent his frustrations on Freedom Coach Napoleon.

The Lion came up the switchback road that led to the summit from the northwest. It was a garish mishmosh of colors. One arm was red, the other green. One leg was blue while the other was yellow. If Reggie wasn’t familiar with the Armored Souls juggernaut customizer, he’d have sworn it was pulled together from a junkyard collection of scraps.

The instant the Lion came over the rise, Napoleon fired a Mass Driver at Vortex. Just like that, Vortex’s left arm was down to 8/20 hit points.

“First blood!” Napoleon taunted.

“Love that movie,” Reggie retorted. But wordplay was for cheesy action flicks when there was fighting to be done. Knowing that another shot from that Mass Driver could take out his arm, he charged the Lion, taking aim with a Plasma Launcher as much for cover fire as for the damage it would inflict.

[Lion[1] - 90% To Hit]

Reggie wished it was due to his stellar aim and not the fact that he was rushing in at point-blank range that was responsible for the nearly guaranteed hit. But getting closer also meant that Napoleon’s Mass Driver would be outside its optimal range, making his chance to hit drastically lower.

Lion[1] Torso: 93/100

This wasn’t a fight that was going to be won trading shots. As Vortex closed in, Reggie drew the Ninjato from its back.

150m

100m

50m

“You bring it, little man!” Napoleon jeered, leveling his Mass Driver for a close-up shot. “Got your next meal right here!”

Reggie juked at the last second, and the shot glanced off Vortex’s shoulder without doing damage.

Still unaccustomed to the lack of a targeting reticule, Reggie swung and twisted the control stick guiding the Ninjato. Before Lion[1] could angle its Mass Driver at a vital area, Vortex slashed it aside. The Critical Hit bonus popped up in his view as he disabled the weapon.

That never happened. Plasma Launchers didn’t hit critical, and Reggie hadn’t used anything else in ages. Critting that Mass Driver felt good.

Suddenly missing his main armament, Napoleon unleashed a barrage of SRMs at point blank range. Both juggernauts took damage from the blasts, though Vortex came out on the worse end of it for having less armor. Reggie found that the left arm was down to 2 hit points.

“Not so tough, huh, in that puny Wolverine?” Napoleon radioed. “Watch me box with this loser.” That was the moment when Reggie realized the taunts were being broadcast to everyone.

[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 361/772]

Around them, the battle still raged across the mountainside. Napoleon’s forces were being devastated, but that seemed a foregone conclusion now. All that was left was a duel atop the mountain for bragging rights.

Lion[1] swung a fist and connected with Vortex’s cockpit, dropping it to 30/40. Even though he was unarmed, a heavy juggernaut could still inflict major damage. The second half of the one-two punch missed as Reggie ducked aside.

It was instinct. Reggie had reacted like his character from Silent Shuriken. And like that mid-level ninja he played for a change of pace, he was already counter-attacking before he registered the action consciously.

Vortex used the momentum of its dodge and kicked the inside of Lion[1]’s knee.

Lion[1] Left Leg: 52/60

Napoleon took another swing as Reggie stepped back to regain his footing. This time, he brought the Ninjato around and caught the Lion’s elbow joint.

Critical Hit! Double Damage!

Lion[1] Right Arm - 18/50

“Squirmy little runt!” Napoleon shouted. He charged in, and Reggie barely had time to move aside to avoid getting bowled over.

As Lion[1] passed by, Vortex took a swing and connected as the larger juggernaut continued onward.

Lion[1] Rear Torso - 44/60

But the space opened up between them meant that Reggie was exposed when Napoleon launched another barrage of SRMs.

Damage warnings blared. Reggie felt the shift in balance as Vortex lost its left arm. Widespread damage across the rest of the chassis armor lit his own wire frame view his juggernaut in mostly yellow, with the cockpit armor edging dangerously close to red.

“Your tricks are crap,” Napoleon said, breathing heavily as if he were the one physically fighting here. “I’ve still got you outgunned and my FreedomDefender is tougher than that crummy Wolverine of yours.”

Reggie pulled up, unable to help himself. “FreedomDefender? You are so goddamn full of yourself. You wouldn’t know the first thing about defending freedom.”

“Hah!” Napoleon countered during a lull by mutual agreement to trade barbs. “I’m Mr. First Amendment. Real world, I defend performance artists’ freedom of expression.”

In some small way, perhaps Napoleon did contribute. Not every fight had to involve life and death. But as someone who took a more literal part in that protecting freedom and liberty…

Reggie was about to shout something that would have sounded a lot like “I died for your freedom,” but realized how close it would have sounded to “I died for your sins” and thought better of it.

Vortex charged in. FreedomDefender pulled back an arm to time a punch for Reggie’s arrival. When that punch came, Reggie sliced cleanly through the arm that threw it.

The two juggernauts collided. Despite being outweighed, Vortex had caught Napoleon’s juggernaut flat-footed and off balance from a punch it had expected to land. In a maneuver Reggie was sure Frank would have been proud of, he bowled FreedomDefender over.

“You think you can out-wrestle—oh, shit!”

Napoleon’s bluster at his chances of winning a fight on the ground lasted only until he realized that the summit of Einarth City wasn’t so large as he and Reggie were treating it during their battle. Reggie’s collision had driven them both over the edge of the steep side of the city.

Once…

Twice…

Three times they struck roads and failed to arrest their fall before momentum carried the grappling pair over yet another precipice. The last fall was destined to be the longest, as a sheer cliff wall receded and the two juggernauts plummeted toward ground level far below.

End over end they slowly spun, each at turns being on top or beneath. Napoleon shifted tactics from trying to clutch Reggie close to frantically trying to separate so that he could have some vain hope of survival.

It was Reggie’s turn to hang on. Wrapping Vortex’s legs partly around the larger juggernaut’s midsection, he raised the Ninjato and prepared for impact.

“Remember this day, Napoleon,” Reggie told him. “This is the day it all came crashing down.”

Napoleon managed to maneuver into a position where Vortex would partly break his fall. Given the distance of their drop, it was more prayer than planning, but Reggie wasn’t taking chances. Just before the two juggernauts struck the city streets, Vortex wedged the Ninjato against FreedomDefender’s cockpit.

Then, as Reggie was getting used to, everything went black.

Chapter Sixty-Five

Reggie was enjoying a cup of coffee in his Seattle Lite apartment and watching television when there was a knock at his door. Muting the volume, he called out, “Come on in.”

June opened the door and stepped inside. She was dressed in civilian clothes—a paisley sundress and flats that he surmised was popular back in the real world. She was grinning. “We won!”

Reggie matched her grin. “Hey! How about that. But we knew from the first ten minutes that we had that.”

“I mean the war,” June said. “Chase just negotiated the peace deal with the second in command of Liberty Clan. He raked them over the coals. We’ll never have to see that Napoleon guy’s face ever again.”

Checking the television screen for the time, Reggie did a little quick math. “I’ve got almost an hour before I can head back in.” He jerked his head in the direction of the bedroom.

But June wasn’t watching his gesture. She was fixated on the TV. “You’re watching the weather of all things?”

“I know. I know,” Reggie said, taking up the remote and flicking off the picture. “I’m the last guy who should care about the weather. But it’s weird. I do. I can check in and see what’s happening back home or anywhere in the world. I can guess what it’s like where my old unit is, or if my uncle in Buffalo is shoveling snow.” He tossed the remote onto the couch. “But it’s silly. I get it.”

June looked a little deflated. “You miss it. That much I can understand. But… it’s not so bad here, is it? I mean, you just got crushed to death on Hrothgar V, but you’re not in any pain. Right?”

Chuckling, Reggie thumped his chest. “Takes a lickin’. Keeps on tickin’. Didn’t feel a thing. I suppose I could go in and up the sensitivity on experiencing pain. But why?”

June nodded, seeming to relax. “Right. Same for everyone, I guess.”

“I didn’t suddenly get stuck in masochist mode just because I’m a permanent resident.”

Collapsing onto the couch, June took a long breath. “Sorry to bring it up.”

Pushing aside the remote, Reggie sat down beside her and looked deep into those green eyes. “You’re not… considering anything drastic. Are you?”

He thought back to all the times she’d told him about the real world, beyond the hospital that he’d once mistaken for Earth. The physical therapy. The surgeries. The looks she got from strangers.

She couldn’t look straight at him. “No. I mean. Not really. It’s just… never mind. I’m fine.”

“No. Tell me,” Reggie said. The tough guy, bottle-it-up routine didn’t apply in here. It was just the two of them in Seattle Lite, and he didn’t care what anyone else thought of them. “I’m here.”

After a shuddering sigh, June began. “At least once a week I wake up and fall out of bed. Being in here, being whole, I forget to put on my legs before trying to stand. I can feel them. That whole phantom sensation problem is amplified because I’m not learning by rote that my legs don’t go all the way to the floor. Every night I log in, my mind gets told it was all a bad dream. I really look like a movie star. My body’s whole and healthy, and nothing aches or stabs or itches. Nothing hurts without even being part of me anymore.”

Reggie put an arm around June and pulled her against him. She sank against his chest and sniffled.

“And here I am, complaining to a man who… who…”

“You can say it. I’m dead. It’s weirdly disconnecting. But I’ve been in here so long, I waffle between imagining my body’s still back in that hospital hooked up to every machine imaginable and thinking that this is some weird hallucination. Other times I think this is what heaven was supposed to be for me.”

“Your dog tags said you were an atheist.”

Reggie chuckled despite the mood in the room. “It takes a special kind of asshole to be an atheist in the afterlife.”

June’s soft weeping broke amid a snort of laughter before resuming. “I guess so. Can you do me a favor though and not mention any of this to Dr. Zimmerman?”

She’d never come out and said it, but Reggie had heard the hints of envy. A life without pain, without a body ravaged by injury. June had been considering ending her life to join Reggie and Frank in an existence that was purely digital.

“Sure, but I want you to do me a favor in return.”

Wordlessly, June nodded.

“I want you to record a message. Put it on a thumb drive or whatever people ten years in the future use these days. Tell yourself all the things you hate about life. All your pains, all your problems. Put it on video. Can you do that?”

She pulled away enough to look up with narrowed eyes. “Why?”

“I want you to destroy it as soon as you’re finished. Don’t keep a copy anywhere. No backups or autosaves. One copy. Gone. Forever. The next time you consider what it’s like living in Valhalla West’s little digital terrarium, remember how easy it is for something that’s just a piece of data to disappear without a trace. Forever. With no coming back.”

Tears welled in June’s eyes as she nodded in understanding. “I’ll do it. I promise.”

June cuddled against Reggie and waited out the timer with him until he was eligible to relog back to Armored Souls. The countdown reached zero, but neither of them said a word. She fell asleep curled up on Reggie’s couch, and he didn’t have the heart to wake her.

Chapter Sixty-Six

It was a green, bright morning at Arlington National Cemetery. White, wispy clouds dotted the sky, and the cherry trees bloomed pink. Not that Reggie could smell them.

Military dress uniforms were the order of the day. Everything was just as it had been for the millions of other soldiers interred at the nation’s most distinguished resting place. The one innocuous exception was a scattering of tiny cameras and microphones translating the scene in real time into the language of the Valhalla West servers.

Reggie and Frank were dressed in uniforms that were identical to the real thing to the point where Reggie had to believe that some army liaison had to have been involved as a consultant. They felt just the way he remembered, right down to the itch of the starched collar.

Beside them, in a digital rendition of an Italian suit, was Ken Bradley.

“Ya done a bang-up job, Kenny-boy,” Frank remarked, not taking his eyes from the ceremony in progress. “Gonna be like this for mine?”

Ken nodded. “The least we can do.”

June and Dr. Zimmerman were there as well, but they were in the flesh. Zimmerman looked just the way the simulation portrayed him—a squirrelly little man, wrinkled and bald except for a fringe of gray around the sides. June was a different story.

She’d warned Reggie that she had tinkered extensively with her appearance at character creation. But standing by Zimmerman’s side, June Mallet was impossible to mistake. She was dressed in her army uniform, cap hiding her blonde hair. One side of her face was discolored by a skin graft, and one eye didn’t track where she looked—a glass replacement for the one she’d lost. Though she stood straight and tall, June clutched a cane for support.

“No man should see this,” Reggie muttered, shaking his head as the guns fired.

He knew at least half of the attendees. There were men and women he’d served with, including a number of older versions of guys from his old unit. It was easy to forget at times how long he’d been gone before waking up in the Valhalla West playground. He saw a few relatives he was surprised had come all the way to D.C. to see him off.

Then, on the periphery of the guests, just as the bugler was playing taps, Reggie spotted Chase and Lin.

Lin looked just like her Armored Souls avatar. As an online personality, he could have seen her disguising herself to avoid recognition, but she’d gone with maintaining her brand and appearing as herself. She wore a plain blue dress and dark glasses.

Chase bore enough of a resemblance to recognize him but only in the face. Real world Chase was taller than his in-game persona and a good deal heavier. The suit he wore looked freshly bought or at least well kept. His hair was plastered to his head and shone with some greasy styling product. The beard he wore was close-trimmed, and unlike Lin’s, his thick-framed glasses were crystal clear.

He kept his arm around Lin through the ceremony. It appeared that their in-game affair had spilled over.

Reggie choked up at the tears he saw throughout the audience. His old C.O. offered condolences to his mother along with the flag used in the ceremony.

As the attendees drifted away and Reggie’s Earthly remains were consigned to their eternal resting place, Frank clapped a heavy hand down on Reggie’s shoulder.

“Just think of it this way,” Frank said, turning Reggie and sweeping a hand out in the direction of all the other grave markers in Arlington. “Of all the fellas in the ground here, you and me are the only ones still kicking around.”

With a furrowed brow, a thought occurred to him. Not every soldier killed in battle died instantly. Most but certainly not all. He and Frank were the first of a new breed of survivor. How long would it be before the army stopped considering soldiers like him and Frank dead at all? Would a day come when there would be entire prosthetic bodies to put a brain back into?

Would any of them be able to tell the difference if it had happened already?

Possibilities swirled in Reggie’s mind. He’d lost a decade without ever noticing it. What if he lost a century? What if this simulation was being run by aliens, and Reggie’s Earth was long gone? What if God had put this all together for him as the only afterlife a non-believer’s mind could wrap itself around?

“Come on,” Reggie said to Ken Bradley before his mind carried him off on the winds of blossoming madness. “Let’s get back to the fake world. I don’t belong here anymore.”

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Reggie stood on the top floor of a palace high-rise at the heart of Jenova City on Nibelheim. This was now officially the center of Wounded Legion, the one unassailable place in the Armored Souls universe for him. It had a civilian population of over 30 million, and a player population that had grown to nearly a hundred in the weeks since the war ended.

Every player who joined had the option of taking over a whole skyscraper of their own. But June had chosen to share Reggie’s. He’d never kept track of her hours in Armored Souls before they shared living quarters—it had seemed like an invasion of her privacy. But now that she spent her off hours in game beside him, he’d noticed that she was working and logging in with little room for anything else in her life. He could hardly imagine when she found the time to buy groceries.

But to some degree, he couldn’t blame her. Standing on his balcony with a view over a sprawling metropolis that belonged to him on an entire world that owed him fealty, Reggie could find few enough reasons to relog to his Seattle Lite apartment.

Going through his regular morning routine, Reggie pulled up a menu to check Wounded Legion’s health.

[Faction > Roster > News (518) > Rewards > Info]

Reggie only ever paid attention to priority messages anymore. The few that demanded his attention got flagged and dealt with. The rest either fell to one of his officers or by the wayside.

He tapped the faction list and checked for new holdings won overnight.

[Nibelheim]

[Green Zone]

[Schet IX]

[Alcon Prime]

[Turrim Auream Starport]

[Nephtali]

[Torbek]

[Dundee Proving Ground]

[Calgon]

[Tullus VI]

[Tirith]

[Chronic Prime]

[Ginjui IV]

[Ophan II]

[Sarmon]

He scanned to the bottom. There was nothing surprising. Just as it should be. Peace was relative in Armored Souls. A new war could be just around the corner, and it would come without warning. He had alliances and defensive pacts. The next war to find him could be defending the Boat Doctors or even Semper Fi against an aggressor.

Tapping menu buttons idly, he looked in on his finances.

[King - 2,250,750Cr]

Wounded Legion was bringing in twice that a day, and half was going straight to the pockets of his troops, divided evenly. Profit sharing wasn’t the default option, but more and more leaders were finding that the practice increased recruiting success. Even after paying maintenance costs on all his holdings, Reggie was pocketing over 100,000k a day to make tweaks to his empire.

June came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “What do you see when you look out there?” she asked, kissing the back of Reggie’s neck.

“Possibility,” he replied. “I can make it anything I want, and since it’s our home base, no one is allowed to take it from us. The whole rest of the galaxy can be in chaos. We could have the Star League fall apart. But right here, this planet, would be a haven for us.”

“Sounds boring,” June said, releasing Reggie and leaning back with her elbows on the balcony railing. She threw her head back with a 150-story drop below her. “Isn’t this world safe enough as it is? This universe? I want to try something dangerous.”

Reggie almost suggested that she try it in the real world, but the temptation was probably too great to overextend. Ken Bradley had let it slip that anyone who’d spent long enough in the Armored Souls universe could be replicated by AI like Reggie had. He could only hope that June got her kicks in the game world and hadn’t discovered that her ticket to paradise was one skydiving mishap away.

With a smirk, Reggie brought up the player mission generator. June furrowed her brow and watched but said nothing.

[Primary Objective: Windsurf on Tullus VI]

“What?” June scoffed. “That’s not a real mission.”

Reggie shot her a mischievous grin. “You should see the reward I’ve set up for it.”

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

The news popped up in Reggie’s field of view just as he was getting across his suggestive promise for his afternoon outing with June.

But she was already popping open a UI window, fingers tapping at nothing in midair.

Reggie scrolled to the bottom of his news inbox.

“Armored Souls is pleased to announce that at midnight, server time, the galactic map will be locked. ‘Why?’ you ask? Because tomorrow marks day 1 of the First Annual Valhalla West Ragnarok Showdown. Form your teams. Compete for prizes including the limited edition Valkyrie-medium juggernaut.”

There was a link at the bottom to the specs on the Valkyrie.

“I want one,” June said flatly. “It’s a Phoenix that packs firepower like a Titan.”

“Seems a little overpowered,” Reggie said dubiously. There was no way Valhalla West was going to allow more than a handful of those into the galaxy. “Does this mean windsurfing is out?”

June’s grin was fierce. “Call the others. We’ve got a tournament to prep for!”

Tech References

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About the Author

Xavier P. Hunter was born at the dawn of the video game age. He grew up with a game controller in his hand, moving from Atari joystick through PS4 controller the way a hermit crab outgrows its shell. His little league was RBI Baseball, his first date was Princess Zelda, and his first unpaid internship was leading raids in World of Warcraft. He lives in a world of pixels and frame rates, coming out infrequently to eat and that sort of thing.

Most of his writing is done while patches download or when servers are down for maintenance.

Like most superheroes, he operates in meat space under an assumed name.

xp-hunter.com

Table of Contents

- Copyright
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 19
- Chapter 20
- Chapter 21
- Chapter 22
- Chapter 23
- Chapter 24
- Chapter 25
- Chapter 26
- Chapter 27
- Chapter 28
- Chapter 29
- Chapter 30
- Chapter 31
- Chapter 32
- Chapter 33
- Chapter 34
- Chapter 35
- Chapter 36
- Chapter 37
- Chapter 38
- Chapter 39
- Chapter 40
- Chapter 41
- Chapter 42
- Chapter 43
- Chapter 44
- Chapter 45
- Chapter 46
- Chapter 47
- Chapter 48
- Chapter 49
- Chapter 50
- Chapter 51
- Chapter 52
- Chapter 53
- Chapter 54
- Chapter 55
- Chapter 56
- Chapter 57
- Chapter 58
- Chapter 59
- Chapter 60
- Chapter 61
- Chapter 62
- Chapter 63
- Chapter 64
- Chapter 65
- Chapter 66
- Chapter 67
- Tech References
- Sign up
- About the Author