Ghost Platoon

by Xavier P. Hunter

  Jackal Right Leg: 23/30

  Jackal Right Leg: 16/30

  Chase’s first volley hit the same Jackal in the right arm.

  Lin’s shot tore the leg from the Jackal. Though a monumental feat of piloting, the stumbling Jackal didn’t go down but instead merely stumbled into a hopping gait and continued onward, seeking cover.

  “Where you want me?” June asked.

  Reggie spared a look down at the tactical map. “Circle around the—”

  “Incoming!” Chase shouted as missile alerts blared. The sky filled with swarms of missiles. If the Jackals had been firing at June with lasers, they had to have been secondary weapons. They’d merely been harassing her until they found an easy target for their missile swarm—a close-packed knot of stationary juggernauts in sniper positions.

  The crater walls would do them little good.

  “Shoot them down!” Reggie ordered. Point-defense lasers on Diablo and Vortex would cut the numbers, and Frank packed a small flak battery that would help a little, but there were simply too many bogeys in the air to entrust them all to automated defenses.

  Point-defense and Beam Cannon laser stabbed up at the skies. Reggie fired into the mass with his Plasma Launchers. Without significant systems to contribute to the defense, Yulong took cover behind Gremlin’s bulk.

  “Gah!” Chase shrieked as the air above them turned into a laser light show. “They’re running deflector missiles!” Sure enough, the lasers were reflecting and refracting off the gleaming surfaces of the warheads. Frank’s flak battery and Reggie’s Plasma Launchers were paltry protection on their own against the incoming barrage.

  Four juggernauts shuddered beneath the massive impact of no fewer than a hundred missiles arriving over the span of three seconds. Vortex’s cockpit went dark momentarily before emergency power flickered on.

  “Took a crit to main power,” Reggie reported. “Twenty seconds until it’s restored.”

  “I’m blind,” Chase reported. “All sensors down. I’ve even got a cracked windshield to look through.”

  “Frank? Lin?” Reggie inquired at a shout over the warning klaxons blaring at him.

  “I’m fine,” Frank said. “Got me some new craters of my own, but it’s spread out nice and even.”

  “Frank shielded me,” Lin said. “Incidental damage.”

  “Hammer and anvil,” Reggie ordered. “Fake shutdowns, both of you. No one moves until I order it. June, watch on sensor feed and come in once we engage.”

  “Roger.” The platoon all confirmed.

  Reggie’s heart pounded. Deflector missiles? Had Dark Ocean Pirates scouted them? Ghost Platoon was well equipped to cut standard missiles from the sky. But their defenses were primarily laser-based. Who would pay eight times the credits for missiles that would only help against that particular system of missile defense?

  Someone who knew who they were up against, Reggie answered himself. They’d never heard of Dark Ocean Pirates, but someone clearly knew Ghost Platoon.

  As the repair countdown ticked, Reggie awaited the inevitable pounce by the Jackals. He didn’t have to wait long.

  Frank cleared his throat. “Ahem, for the benefit of Mr. Magoo, here they come.”

  “Hold!” Reggie ordered. He winced, anticipating another missile barrage and hoping that it wasn’t coming. The Jackals closed in.

  700m…

  650m…

  “Hooooold!” Reggie radioed, wary that someone would jump the gun if their nerves got to them.

  600m…

  550m…

  Each of the Jackals drew a pair of axes. That was their plan. A disabling barrage of expensive missiles, then take the survivors to the ground before their systems recovered. Whoever they were, they likely couldn’t afford to fire off that sort of ordnance multiple times in a battle. Either that or they’d fired everything they had in that volley. Now that he considered it…

  “HOLD!” Reggie bellowed.

  Images of Vortex being hacked to bits with him inside it flashed in Reggie’s mind.

  “Let ‘em try it!” Frank retorted. “I’ll snap those scrawny little—”

  500m…

  Reggie ignored Frank’s bluster. “Ready… NOW!”

  Frank blasted away with Beam Cannon-Ls. Chase let loose manually aimed sprays of laser fire of his own to little effect. Lin slung Yulong’s Anti-Matter Projector into line and snapped off a shot before the weapon even settled. The Jackals veered and took evasive action but charged onward.

  Vortex was still in shutdown, operating only on comms and scanners.

  :03

  :02

  :01

  Engines roared to life just in time to draw Vortex’s Ninjato and meet the Jackals head on. The Wolverine may have been a medium juggernaut ill-suited to melee combat against a heavy of any kind, but it was a bruiser as far as mediums go. Forty-five tons of Jackal hit 65 tons of Wolverine, and Vortex took the impact like a sumo champion, bracing for impact with a forward lean that absorbed all the charging Jackal’s momentum.

  To his side, a blinded Chase pulled a play right out of the Silent Shuriken playbook. Barely able to see his opponent and piloting the same Jackal class of juggernaut, he relied on balance and leverage. At the last second, Chase adjusted Diablo’s footing. He caught the Dark Ocean Pirate by the wrist of one arm, taking a wicked axe blow in the process but then turned, put a shoulder into the rival Jackal, and threw it over a shoulder.

  Two of the Jackals leaped at Gremlin, taking the towering behemoth high and attempting to ride him to the ground.

  Frank stood tall. The two Jackals together still didn’t match the 110 tons of his Tiger, and the dual wrestling matches taking place on Gremlin’s shoulders both went his way. Before the Dark Ocean Pirates could think better of their attack or do more than cosmetic damage to Gremlin’s armor, Frank had gathered the two juggernauts and pinned them together at his chest in a single hydraulic bear hug.

  The one facing down Yulong and her thirty-foot katana skidded to a halt before it reached melee range. Unfortunately for its pilot, Yulong was neither a statue nor a fixed defensive structure. When the Jackal declined to close the distance, Lin made the decision for him. Faced with the prospect of taking on a 95-ton heavy by himself, the Jackal pilot went into full-on retreat.

  That’s when June opened up with Artemis’s DF Ballistic Cannon-150, slamming home a sabot-cased sub-caliber round that did little damage to armor but often punched straight through to the unprotected systems inside.

  Despite being engaged with a Jackal of his own, Reggie grinned at the sound. At times, he imagined that June only kept the relatively low-tech weapon equipped on Artemis to remind Reggie of his tanking day back in the real world. But when a glance at the tactical wireframe showed that the Jackal was still fully armored but had lost its main engine, he remembered how much of a high-roll those crits could get at times.

  Yulong closed in to finish off a helpless target.

  Turning his attention fully back to his own opponent, Reggie disengaged from his grapple. Vortex shoved the lighter juggernaut back with ease, though the enemy pilot seemed equally at ease keeping his footing despite the manhandling. Slashing out with his Ninjato, Reggie caught the Jackal on the arm.

  Jackal Left Arm: 20/30

  [Sole Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 1/5]

  [Sole Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 2/5]

  Gremlin opened its arms, and two downed juggernauts slumped to the ground looking more like crushed beer cans than war machines. The Tiger-class monstrosity dusted off its hands and headed over to the judo contest between Chase and the equally matched Dark Ocean Pirate Jackal on the ground with him.

  Reggie finished hacking the arm off the Jackal in front of him as it backed away to get enough range to bring its non-melee weapons systems into the battle. For a group that had charged in with such ferocity, the Dark Ocean Pirates had changed their tune in a hurry.

  Frank nudged Diablo out of the way, and Gre
mlin stomped down, ending yet another Jackal.

  [Sole Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 3/5]

  “Sayonara, kyuban!” Lin shouted. Reggie glanced over just in time to see her bring her katana down in a carefully aimed critical hit that chopped the head off the Jackal with the dead engine.

  [Sole Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 4/5]

  “My anime-grade Japanese is rusty,” Chase radioed out. “Was that ‘so long, sucker’?”

  “Something like that,” Lin replied.

  Another sabot-shedding round came from June’s location, taking Reggie’s opponent in the torso with minimal armor damage. What it did inside was anyone’s guess. Might have been a dud.

  “Want me to squish that one too?” Frank asked. “Or you looking to play with your food a little?”

  “I’ve got this.”

  Vortex slashed.

  Jackal Right Arm: 20/30

  Vortex kicked.

  Jackal Torso: 23/50

  The Jackal toppled onto its back.

  Vortex stepped down on the Jackal’s chest. Reggie took a page from Lin’s playbook, grabbing the Ninjato in both hands, dropping down, plunging the blade into the Jackal with all his weight behind it.

  [Sole Objective Complete: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 5/5]

  The sky above flashed with fireworks.

  WINNER: GHOST PLATOON.

  “Fuck yeah!” Lin whooped. “Level 50!”

  They’d done it. After an initial scare, Ghost Platoon had pulled together and won a convincing victory. Before the feeling of accomplishment had a chance to sink in, Reggie and the rest of the platoon were whisked away to the green room.

  “Tell me,” the Valhalla West correspondent asked, shoving a foam-topped microphone in Reggie’s face before he even had time to adjust to his surroundings. “How does it feel to make it to group play?”

  “Um…”

  Chase stepped in to answer for him. “Twice as hard as it needed to be. But they won’t keep us out! Wounded Legion! Woo!”

  That appeared to satisfy the reporter, who ignored Reggie to face the camera. “And there you have it. One more team off to face the Ragnarok Showdown group play round, sponsored by Co-Min Computing and mVisual Graphics.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Reggie, Chase, June, Lin, and Frank kept up the smiles and sound bites as the camera lenses glinted just inches from their faces. It wasn’t long, however, before they found themselves back at headquarters and in no company but their own.

  “Fuck that!” Lin snapped. “What was that even about?” She stood in June’s face, and despite having to lift her chin to look the taller pilot in the eye, June shrank back.

  Like the slamming of a door, it signaled the end of polite discourse.

  “Ease off,” Reggie ordered, but this was a place where orders were suggestions at best.

  “No, I noticed the same thing,” Chase added. “It was five on four-and-a-half out there… at best. June did it again, out of position.”

  “It’s not easy, doing what she does, you know,” Reggie replied, stepping between Chase and the standoff between the two women.

  “’Course it isn’t,” Chase agreed without dropping his confrontational tone. “But it’s what she does. Frank might make it look easy, but out-brawling every juggernaut he comes across takes tons of practice and technique. You think we’ve got many pilots in Wounded Legion who can shoot as good as Lin? And I’m not even talking about skill builds. June’s a scout. Artemis can’t do shit in an all-out-war. Her one and only real job is to win the intel and positioning war, and she’s shit herself both matches in this tournament.”

  June turned away and headed for the bar. The NPC staff was politely oblivious to the in-fighting and hurried to get her a beverage.

  “Gonna let ‘em yank you like that without so much as a whimper?” Frank challenged.

  “Yeah,” June said listlessly. “Because they’re right.”

  Frank growled and strode over, knocking the beer from the waiter’s hand as he tried to serve it to June. “Where you get off? You’re not even pissed how much you sucked lemons out there!”

  Reggie raised his hands to get everyone’s attention. “Calm down, everyone. We’ve got an off day, and we’ve got seven opponents to prepare for. June’s going to shape up. Just give her time to warm up.”

  “Like hell,” Lin said, sitting down on one of the poker tables and dangling her feet. “June’s not even trying out there. It’s like she’s begging to lose.”

  “I’m not trying to lose,” June insisted, finally showing a little life.

  “Not caring is the same as not trying,” Frank grumbled, leaning across the bar and pouring his own beer from the tap. “And not trying to win is the same as trying to lose.”

  Reggie swallowed because he’d noticed something off too. June had been acting awfully needy lately. Selfishly, he’d assumed she was trying to bolster his mood. Maybe, however, there was more going on in that head of hers than she let on.

  Strike that. She was a woman. Reggie was positive there was more going on in her head than she let on. But just what that might be, he had to wonder.

  “Is there something going on we need to know about?” Reggie asked. “You know you can tell us anything.”

  Frank grunted into his purloined beer. “Dead men tell no tales.”

  June looked from one of them to the next for a sign that anyone was on her side here. Reggie pleaded with his eyes that they all were, that they were concerned about her and not just because of her performance out in the field.

  Maybe he ought to have said that out loud, because before anyone else spoke a word, June stalked off to the elevator. “Fine. Have fun finding a replacement,” she snapped. “Ought to be easy, right? I’m just dead weight anyway.”

  An uncomfortable silence reigned in her immediate absence.

  “We’ve got all day tomorrow for her to cool down,” Chase said. “I’ll work up dossiers on Group C.”

  Reggie nodded absently, staring at the elevator door. The boyfriend in him said to chase after her. The general insisted he stay put and see to his troops.

  The general won.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The next day, Chase set up a PowerPoint presentation in the Wounded Legion War Room. The little piece of software had been long absent from Wounded Legion, and for good reason. Reggie had banned the plugin that allowed it to cross into the Valhalla West gaming ecosystem. He’d seen far too much of it in briefings during his military days and didn’t need to be reminded of the world he’d left behind him.

  Chase caught the glare Reggie had fixed on him and offered an apologetic grin. “Sorry. Short notice. I had a lot of data to pull together, and this was the quickest way to slap it all onto a screen with pictures.”

  Lin and Frank kept quiet in their seats in the darkened War Room as they awaited a judgment from their general.

  But this was neither the time nor the place to get picky about software protocol. “Whatever. Dig into it. Who are we up against?”

  Chase took a deep breath and dove into the briefing. “There are eight teams in Group C. Since we’re obviously one of them, that leaves seven opponents. It’s round robin, so we’ll be playing each of those seven, win or lose.”

  Frank circled a hand in the air like a paddlewheel. “Yeah, yeah. We get the lawyer fine print about how the points and nonsense work. Let’s get to the who.”

  Chase tapped on his portable, and the screen showed the Group C rosters.

  [Tough Occupation 0-0]

  [Lucky Outlaws 0-0]

  [Pale Veterans 0-0]

  [Eminent Deadly 0-0]

  [Acceptable Devils 0-0]

  [Diligent Squad 0-0]

  [Spiffy Exterminators 0-0]

  [Ghost Platoon 0-0]

  “First up,” Chase said. “Tough Occupation. This is the first of two matches we’ll play tomorrow. They’re a bread-and-butter crew. Nothing special. Tactically sound. They run an a
ll-medium platoon of two Wolverines, two Chi-Ris, and one Phoenix. The Chi-Ris are the wild cards. They’re missile spec, and we can count on seeing them adjust to how we handled the Jackal barrage in the prelims. Don’t be surprised if they try to isolate me or Reggie and lay a cloud of reflective missiles on us.”

  “Got a plan for them?” Lin asked. She had a bored look on her face, but her eyes were focused. She leaned onto the tactical table with her cheek resting on one hand.

  “Execution,” Chase replied firmly. “We don’t want to get cute with the bunnies in this group because this group is anything but seven bunnies. Any trick we pull out of our hat to beat these guys won’t be a surprise to the real threats.”

  “Great! Let’s execute ‘em,” Frank agreed wholeheartedly. “Hack those bastards’ heads right off ‘em.”

  “You joke, but that’s more or less the plan,” Chase replied. “The more I thought about it yesterday at work while pretending to code, the more I realized that melee is going to be big in this tournament.”

  “Sounds counterintuitive,” Lin replied. “It’s a backup plan at best for a reason.”

  Chase shot a finger at Lin as if she’d just spoken the key to some great secret. “Exactly! It’s incredibly counterintuitive, but that’s because this isn’t a mission. There might be a snarky little ‘sole objective’ popup every match, but that’s a red herring. This is a cage fight no matter how big a cage it might be. This isn’t about playing it safe and maximizing profits. We don’t get bonus points for saving on repair bills. There are two reasons why melee is going to matter here. First, all the matches are going to be close. Even the biggest blowout is going to take more out of a winning platoon than the toughest mission.”

  “Maybe…” Reggie allowed. “But still seems risky to intentionally engage at point-blank range.”