Ghost Platoon

by Xavier P. Hunter

  “Don’t count your Valkyries before they hatch,” Chase warned. “June’s in almost as bad shape as I am. If these guys realize they can overrun us, we could still be in trouble.”

  “Return fire,” Reggie ordered. “If they overrun you, so be it. Make them think twice about advancing over open ground to get to you.”

  The fighting reached a fever pitch as four Demons fell back and shared a tight space of cover in the shadow of a single Mayan pyramid. Armed with Anti-Matter Projectors, Reggie and the rest of Ghost Platoon took care to time the charge recycle of the enemy weapons to minimize taking multiple shots of return fire as they pelted Psychedelic Thugs with everything they had.

  Ghost Platoon was winning.

  But like any fighter worth his paycheck, the cadets didn’t allow themselves to be whittled down without trying a risky gambit to turn the tables. Without warning, the four of them launched a charge at Lin’s location.

  It wasn’t the move Reggie had been expecting. He’d figured on them taking out the easy targets—Diablo and Artemis—just to reduce the number of guns hemming them in. But maybe doing what Reggie didn’t expect was part of the plan.

  “Requesting backup,” Lin said calmly and professionally. Her FPS days had inoculated her against the fear of swarming foes. She might die, but that was just a quick trip to the green room. Lin was going to go down shooting—if she went down at all.

  Ghost Platoon still had a chance to save her. “Chase, June, keep up fire. Frank, you and me are going to make this a bar brawl in a phone booth.”

  Three on four was horrible odds, especially when Reggie was undersized for the fight. But with Frank in the mix and two juggernauts on the outside shooting, he felt like this was the best play.

  Plus, there was still the odd reluctance he saw for the cadets to resort to melee combat.

  Yulong fired, tripping up one of the Demons and causing it to stumble but not stopping its advance. Just before the first of the Demons reached her—to all appearances to surround her at point-blank range, not to brawl—she drew Yulong’s katana.

  Anti-Matter Projectors tore into Yulong’s chassis from all angles. Lin slashed and spun, but she couldn’t keep up pressure on all sides at once to hold them at bay. The Demons fell back when she attacked and attacked where she couldn’t defend.

  Frank and Reggie’s arrival changed that.

  June put in a leg shot that hobbled one of the Demons with a critical hit to the knee. Chase poured laser fire into the gimpy Demon’s leg to try to drop it. Frank and Reggie both gave that one a wide berth as they plowed into Psychedelic Thugs.

  Gremlin, as usual, bowled its opponent over with ease. Demons were light as heavies went, at a mere 80 tons. Under a head of steam, Frank dealt damage at initial impact, and his 30-ton advantage came into play when he landed atop his foe.

  Reggie gave up 15 tons to his adversary, but careening in at full speed, he still managed to overbalance Demon[1] and take the fight to the ground.

  Two on one, Lin ignored the Demon that Chase and June were tormenting and focused solely on a single Demon with her blade.

  It surprised Reggie that none of the Thugs were armed for melee. It was true that juggernauts did plenty of damage with fists and feet, and that massive, bulky melee weapons reduced mobility—but not by a lot. Squad tactics and excellent shooting skills had carried this squad to the semi-finals.

  That was where Ghost Platoon was about to end their run.

  Frank made short work of his pinned Demon. Shredded though Yulong was by the swarming fire she’d taken before her rescue, Lin managed to stumble into her chosen Demon with the last of Yulong’s engine power and ram a katana through its torso.

  [Sole Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 2/5]

  [Sole Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 3/5]

  Chase and June downed the Demon they’d hamstrung and left it for the melee crew to finish off.

  That left Reggie to grapple his Demon like a bull rider. The pilot of Demon[1] tried every trick he could think of to dislodge Reggie from the pin. But the Demon just wasn’t large enough to brute force its way to its feet. It twisted and bucked, thrashed and swatted. It couldn’t angle its oversized weapon to hit Vortex. Reggie managed to keep his balance the whole time as he pressed Vortex’s mass to keep the Demon down.

  …until Frank showed up and hacked its head off in two blows like a woodsman splitting firewood.

  [Sole Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 4/5]

  It was an act of mercy to finish off the flopping, legless Demon and its wild anti-matter shots from the turf.

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

  Trumpets blared, and the whole jungle burst into hundred-meter-high flames.

  WINNER: GHOST PLATOON.

  Chapter Forty-One

  There was a scheduled off day before the grand finals. Far from being a day to rest and recuperate, Ghost Platoon found themselves dragged out for a media circus the likes of which Reggie had never seen before.

  The cameras, the brilliant lights, the microphones, and the forced smiles. Every bit of it was digital, and half of it was superfluous. Any Internet media news outlet could have taken a video feed from an invisible point in space just as easily, but that wasn’t the aesthetic Valhalla West liked to project. Their digital world was just as real as the world of flesh and blood—or so they’d have you believe.

  Reggie, for one, was grateful for the attention to detail.

  The hullaballoo, he could live without.

  [Consent to digital image use and broadcast? Y/N]

  He rolled his eyes. “Yes.”

  By his side, June echoed him, as did Lin, Frank, and Chase as they followed Reggie into the venue.

  Ken Bradley was front and center waiting for them with a smile that at least had the decency to appear genuine. He grabbed Reggie’s hand and shook it. “Reggie, my man! So proud of you! You’ve put more time and attention into Armored Souls than anyone in the game’s history, and that includes the development team. I can’t officially have a rooting interest, but I’m so happy seeing you make it this far. You won’t believe what we’ve got in store for you.”

  “Thanks, Ken,” Reggie said. “Love to say we’re just happy to be here, but to hell with that. We’ve got one match left, and we’re hungry to win it.”

  “That, and the payback,” Chase added. The other team to make the finals was Lucky Outlaws, their tormentors from Group C.

  Ken looked to the ceiling and spread his hands. “Ugh. The conspiracies. I couldn’t have scripted the finals any better, and the forum trolls think I did just that. Well, never mind about that. Mingle. Meet the press. Enjoy the buffet and the open bar—”

  “We all run deluxe accounts,” Chase reminded him. Drinks were free throughout the Valhalla West gaming universe for them. The dead players all had their accounts upgraded compliments of Valhalla West. Chase’s was a fringe benefit from working on the Silent Shuriken dev team. Lin’s was a business write-off.

  “Right. Of course. Well, it’s all top-shelf stuff anyway. Just make yourselves comfortable, and don’t let any of the reporters talk your ears off.”

  Ken disappeared into the crowd.

  “You think the Lucky Outlaws are around here somewhere?” June asked quietly, glancing out into the sea of digital bodies.

  Reggie shrugged. “I suppose, probably. Unless we arrived first. Think I missed my chance to ask Ken about those ringer teams of Chase’s?”

  “If we find the Outlaws, we can ask them,” June pointed out.

  Reggie mingled and accepted congratulations as he wended his way through the crowd. Time and again, someone stuck a microphone in his face, asked a few predictable questions, and vanished. Eventually, June was the one who spotted them.

  Five men and women in matching sports jackets and ties huddled uncomfortably together near the end of one of the buffet tables. They were all munching on little snacks and appeared to be trying very hard to blend i
nto the scenery.

  “You sure that’s them?” Reggie asked softly into her ear.

  June smiled knowingly. “I’ve got a hunch. And if I’m right, I have an idea who they might be, playing on Chase’s conspiracy theory.”

  “You’ve got my attention,” Reggie whispered back.

  June separated herself from Reggie as they approached the group. Sticking out a hand, she introduced herself. “Hi. I’m Lt. June Mallet, US Army, retired. Currently piloting a Phoenix for Ghost Platoon. I presume you fine folks are the Lucky Outlaws.”

  One of the gaggle set aside his hors d’oeuvre and accepted the handshake. “Not fond of the name, but yes we are. I’m Captain Myles DuBois, United States Air Force. On special assignment, currently.”

  “Sgt. Reggie King,” Reggie said, exchanging handshakes all around.

  “We know who you are, Sgt.,” DuBois assured him. “You’re a bit of a legend, both in this game and all across the service.”

  “I am?”

  June leaned in front of Reggie with a smile. “He really doesn’t get it.”

  A woman from Lucky Outlaws introduced herself as a second lieutenant. “Strange battlefield last time. Looking forward to having another go at your platoon, Sergeant.”

  “Can one of you tell me what’s going on with the military-sponsored teams?” Reggie asked bluntly.

  A Major Shannon Austin shrugged. “Can’t say for sure. Our best guess is it’s some intra-service competition by top brass. We know we were up against a platoon from the Marines at one point, and I heard rumors about Annapolis sending a team but never figured out who they were.”

  “Psychedelic Thugs was a bunch of cadets from West Point,” Reggie said, hoping that an open exchange might shed light on the mystery.

  “And you folks are the Army team,” DuBois pointed out.

  “Not technically,” Reggie admitted. “I was regular army. June was in the paratroopers and the medical corp. Frank… hell, Frank’s been retired since before any of us were born.”

  “Our other two are civilians,” June added.

  “Civilians?” Lt. Jackson joked. “They let civvies play this game?”

  “I heard your ‘civilians’ both worked for Army Intelligence,” Maj. Austin said. “Possibly the NSA. One’s a liaison to Valhalla West—not that I buy the favoritism crap on the Internet, mind you.”

  Reggie and June shared a perplexed look. “Not that I’m aware,” Reggie replied. “Chase works for Valhalla, but he’s a mid-level developer for their ninja game. Lin’s a video game streamer professionally, and I don’t think she got her citizenship until a couple years back.”

  “Huh. Go figure. Thought for sure you guys were ringers.”

  Reggie grinned. “I’d been given to believe the same about you guys.”

  After a brief chat, Reggie and June rejoined Ghost Platoon for the official phase of the day’s festivities. Ghost Platoon and Lucky Outlaws were invited forward to take a guided tour of a special Valhalla West hangar as the media tagged along behind with cameras.

  All along both sides of the glittering steel and glass amphitheater of a hangar were giant, cloth-shrouded forms.

  As he followed Ken Bradley down a central aisle wide enough to conduct parades, Reggie’s mouth went dry. It was no secret what had to be under those.

  “I know what you’ve all been waiting for,” Ken boomed, voice carrying over the crowd with ease. “And… without further ado… I give you… the Valkyries!”

  Cables yanked the shrouds away into the rafters, exposing the glossy, pristine armor of the most advanced juggernauts ever to enter Armored Souls. They were designed with a look of vengeful angels. Stern. Commanding. Invincible. Capable of delivering divine wrath on unbelievers.

  “The Valkyrie is the initial offering of a new galactic manufacturer, Helheim Forge. It boasts a Mjolnir-IX reactor with energy output similar to the Dragon-class heavy by Bernstein Manufacturing, a Kvasir-I targeting computer with higher target acquisition speed than any system on the market, an advanced heat sink system that rivals that of the Yamato, and it does it all within a form factor similar to that of the Phoenix. I give you, Armored Soul’s ultimate weapon.”

  “Lousy armor, though,” Frank muttered into Reggie’s ear. The old-timer leaned the other way, and Reggie could just overhear him tell Chase, “I told you we’d be getting these for the finals.”

  Reggie wondered if Frank might be right. Because the next thing they knew, Ken was leading them all up to the catwalk levels and letting each of the remaining ten pilots in the tournament climb into the cockpit of one and get a feel for the controls.

  Over the years, Reggie had piloted a number of different juggernauts ranging from Otsus to Elephants. He kept Vortex as his primary because it did everything and did it reasonably well. He could hold his ground against heavies even in melee combat and track down lights well enough. It worked well as a command vehicle and an arena combatant.

  The Valkyrie reminded him of the cockpit of a Phoenix. June was going to be in heaven.

  Everything smelled new, from the seat leather to the hard plastic of the control stick grips. It was a smaller cockpit than the one he was used to, but it felt homey and comfortable. Everything he needed was within easy reach. The controls fit his hands like they were molded to his avatar’s specifications.

  It occurred to him that the latter point might have been literally true.

  How hard would it have been for Valhalla West to customize ten juggernauts to the exact specifications of the finalists? Not hard at all, really.

  Reggie’s ogling was interrupted by reporters sticking their heads in, shoving microphones at Reggie and asking him questions about the Valkyrie. He tried not to let the pestering ruin his enjoyment of the shiny, new, and very, very powerful medium-in-size-only juggernaut he was sitting within.

  By maneuverability, the Valkyrie was nearly as quick as many lights. By firepower, it rivaled a heavy—no, maybe even a super-heavy juggernaut. Only its armor was, as Frank had pointed out, nothing particularly special, although there was some note in the specs about it being crit-resistant.

  Reggie’s time in the Valkyrie was over all too soon for his liking. He looked over his shoulder as Ken Bradley’s PR team ushered him back out of the hangar along with the rest of the pilots and the media entourage they’d acquired.

  I’ll be back, he silently promised the Valkyrie.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Game Day.

  The Grand Finals.

  This was it. All or nothing. One team would be going home with a set of those incredible Valkyries to call their own. The other team would just be going home. There was no prize in this tournament for second place.

  To Reggie’s surprise, when Ghost Platoon disappeared from the Wounded Legion hangar, they didn’t immediately arrive at the battlefield. Instead, Vortex, Artemis, Diablo, Yulong, and Gremlin were aboard a dropship in flight.

  “What’s going on?” Chase asked. “I didn’t get any hints of any change up for the grand finals.”

  “No idea,” Reggie admitted.

  “Looks like you were wrong, Frank,” June snickered. “We’re in our own juggernauts.”

  Frank sniffed. “A shame. I was looking forward to driving a sporty model.”

  “You’re too old for a mid-life crisis,” Chase argued.

  “Not a mid-afterlife crisis,” Frank shot back.

  Reggie let them have their banter. They’d spent the previous evening going over every detail of their last encounter with the Lucky Outlaws. Then they’d analyzed the Outlaws’ other matches. After that, the five of them had weighed the pros and cons of various weapons loadouts, even going so far as to consult with Lin’s marketing guru about the kinds of battlefields that might make for the best viewing experience and how Ghost Platoon could best arm themselves to contest it.

  In the end, not changing up from last round was the biggest curveball Chase could come up with. But they’d spent hours combing through
every detail nonetheless, and Reggie figured being loose for the upcoming battle was more important than being focused.

  Then the dropship’s loading ramp lowered. All the juggernauts were still locked safely in place for transit, but the vessel itself was still in flight. Ghost Platoon got a spectacular view looking down at their final battlefield for the tournament.

  It was a cross between a futuristic city and a custom obstacle course designed specifically for one battle. Towers and spires rose up like a forest, crisscrossed by catwalks and ramps. The arrangement had a donut quality to it, dancing around the perimeter with a force field bubble surrounding a complex at the center. Off to the sides of the arena was…

  Nothing.

  Stars glinted against the backdrop of interstellar space. The whole arena was a single, giant space station.

  “Cool as fuck,” Chase breathed.

  “Hope there’s air in that bubble,” Lin remarked.

  June made a thoughtful noise. “Wonder what’s inside that smaller force field at the center.”

  No one had an answer, but the dropship wasn’t done with their tour. Down and around they spiraled, getting a close enough look that the combatants could get a feel for the scope and layout of the arena. What at first looked to be a potential no-man’s land at the center of the battlefield turned out to be anything but.

  “Are those what I think they are?” Lin asked.

  “I think so,” Chase replied.

  “What?” Frank demanded. “I can’t see shit down there. All that purpley-hazy force fieldy crap is in the way.”

  “They’re Valkyries,” Reggie said. “Our prize is right there at the center of the arena, under a force field.”

  “Huh,” Chase grunted. “Hope they don’t expect us to pay freight charges for hauling our old rides back to Nibelheim.”

  “As a video producer myself, I love that they’re taunting us by having the prizes just out of reach the whole battle,” Lin said. “But as someone about to go fight for those insane juggernauts… FUCK Valhalla West and Ken Bradley for teasing us!”