Wounded Legion: a mech LitRPG novel (Armored Souls Book 2)

by Xavier P. Hunter

  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 fo
r 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.