Dead Mech Walking: a mech LitRPG novel (Armored Souls Book 1)

by Xavier P. Hunter

  “Bleeping idiot,” Kim snarled. “This is all your fault. I lost half a level’s XP out there thanks to your bleep plan.”

  Grant sat back, arms crossed. “Didn’t know I’d gone out with a bunch of bleeping bleeps that couldn’t follow a simple bleeping plan.”

  “Oh, hey,” Barclay said. “It’s the bleep scout that got himself taken out of the fight and left us blind.”

  Eyes turned toward Reggie. “Any fight you can walk away from… right?” he said, paraphrasing Chuck Yeager’s take on landings.

  “Can it, noob,” Grant snapped. “I don’t care who you claim to be IRL. In here, you’re a sub-AI pilot who doesn’t even know how to follow simple orders.”

  Iris slammed her palms on the table and stood up. “Hey! Lay off King. He saw that bleep show coming from three and a half klicks out. How come a so-called expert like you didn’t know that?”

  “We had a plan,” Grant countered in the stiff calmness of a guy about to blow his stack. “If we’d stuck to the plan, we’d all be in the hangar picking out juggernaut upgrades.”

  “Instead, we lost all our XP,” Kim shot back, waving a mug of beer that sloshed dangerously close to spilling. “I’ve been level 5 for weeks now.”

  “And look at poor King,” Iris added, aiming a finger at Reggie’s nameplate. “He’s lost the plus next to his level. He was level 2 except for locking in his choices. Now he’s back to square one.”

  “Not my fault the bleeper didn’t spend ‘em when he had the chance. I told him to just—”

  “Dump it in Piloting,” Kim finished for him. “Crap advice. He’s better off replaying level 1 than going full Piloting spec. Big juggernaut, big guns, doesn’t matter if you’re light on your toes in a game with lasers.”

  Reggie tried to stay out of the fray. He was the new guy. His opinion didn’t matter. There was no shame in keeping your head down, taking the reprimand, and doing better the next time.

  “Shut up, all of you,” Grant snapped, pounding a fist on the table and making the bottles and glasses clatter. “Fine. We bleeped the mission in the bleep. No changing that. Pay your repair bills and ammo reload, and I’ll find us a new mission.”

  “No.”

  They all turned, even Reggie, at the pronouncement from Iris.

  “I’m done with you as leader,” Iris continued now that she had everyone’s undivided attention. “We either appoint a new platoon leader, or I go find a new platoon.”

  Grant spread his hands. “C’mon… don’t get all bent out of shape. I’m as frustrated as anyone.”

  The wheedling tone turned Reggie’s stomach. That was the sort of behavior a drill sergeant squeezed out of new recruits. The soldier in Reggie told him to chew Grant out, make him show a little self-respect. But this wasn’t his fight.

  Grant reached out to pull Iris close.

  “Not happening,” Iris replied, jerking away. “This was the last straw. We’ve wiped five times in the past week. My brother’s platoon over in House Libra is all at least level 8, and he started after we’d all made level 3 and I was bragging how much fun we were having.”

  “She’s got a point,” Barclay said. “We have been wiping a lot. Maybe someone else oughta pick our missions.”

  “Pfft. Can’t have one guy pick missions and someone else run ‘em,” Grant countered. You need me for in-game tactics, and I won’t get stuck with someone else’s win rate for picking lousy missions.”

  “Could you do worse?” Kim asked. His earnestness made it tough to tell whether he was serious or had a master’s grasp of sarcasm.

  “Bleep you,” Grant snapped. “If you don’t like my mission picks, leave the platoon.”

  “Actually…” Iris said. “We can appoint a new platoon leader with three votes.”

  Grant’s face went slack. He gawked wide-eyed as realization dawned that he had probably just commanded his final mission for the Cold Brotherhood.

  “You’ve got my vote,” Kim said to Iris. He shrugged and sat back as if that settled the matter.

  “I dunno…” Barclay waffled. “Grant started this platoon. Plus, you’ve never been big on mission planning.”

  A wry smile and glimmer of mischief in her eye tipped Reggie off even before Iris said it. “Not me. Him.” She aimed a finger at Reggie without taking her gaze off Grant.

  “But I barely know how to pilot my own juggernaut,” Reggie objected.

  “Who cares?” Iris countered. “We’ll help you with that part. You’ve had honest-to-God tactical training. You’re not trying to cram Rambo, the Terminator, and John Wick into one cockpit.”

  “Hey!” Grant objected.

  But Iris plowed on. “We’ve got a chance at a real hardass platoon here. Vote for King here, and the days of full wipes and rental juggernauts are gone for good.”

  “Fine,” Barclay agreed with a sigh. “I hate that Kestrel they keep sticking me with.”

  “I’m on board for King,” Kim said. “Rather get blasted to the hospital by a guy who’s been under live fire and won’t piss his pants over some digital ambush.”

  “I did NOT,” Grant argued in vain.

  “Plus me makes three,” Iris said, singsonging the rhyme.

  Either something she said carried official weight in the game, or the three of them had an input device Reggie wasn’t aware of, because next thing he knew a system message popped up in his field of view.

  [Platoon Cold Brotherhood Has New Commander: King]

  Grant got up without a word and stormed off. The sliding doors to the lounge opened and closed as he ran off to sulk.

  Kim leaned over in his seat and clapped Reggie amiably on the arm. “Congrats, man. Now go pick us a winner.”

  “Yeah,” Barclay chimed in.

  “But I didn’t—”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Iris cut him off. “Three votes is enough even if you abstain. You’re in charge… sir.”

  Reggie was in a daze. He hadn’t expected a command position at all, let alone before he officially reached level 2. Instead he muttered, “Don’t call me ‘sir.’ I work for a living.”

  “What’s that?” Kim asked, craning to hear.

  Reggie blinked and took a breath. “Sorry. What was that about rental juggernauts?”

  ∞

  Juggernauts weren’t free to operate. Ammo cost credits. So did repairs. The more missiles you fired, the more damage you took and the more expensive your juggernaut was to get back in fighting shape for the next mission.

  Reggie hadn’t even noticed the commendation after his first battle under Commander Specker. It had come with free repair and reload.

  There hadn’t been any commendations for anyone after Grant’s disastrous mission.

  House Virgo had a rental program for pilots who couldn’t afford to put their juggernauts back into service. There was no risk of losing credits in one, but House Virgo took a cut of all battlefield proceeds.

  Reggie was assigned a Sandpiper.

  Unlike the Sandpipers in the tutorial mission, this one had one Beam Cannon-S and one Minigun rather than a pair of Miniguns. That meant that he would at least be able to peck away at large armored targets.

  Unfortunately, the drop down in firepower from even his lightly armed Pixie meant that mission selection was going to be tricky. Still, the inability to lose credits held a certain appeal. If he could suck it up and deal with a virtually unarmed scout juggernaut, he’d be able to bank cash for a real upgrade—maybe even enough to skip past repairing Daisy and get something with a menacing arsenal.

  “Why do all these missions suck?” Reggie asked himself as he browsed the House Virgo mission board. Without the “Level <4” filter on, there were plenty of interesting options. But there wasn’t a chance in hell or the Middle East of completing them.

  Among his options were a convoy escort to relocate a mining operation on one of the border outposts. There was a chance of an ambush by raiders during the move, when valuable mining equipment was vulnerable.
But the payout was proportionate to the number of raiders destroyed. The reward for an escort without incident wasn’t worth the time to travel there and back.

  Still, it looked manageable.

  The next mission that caught Reggie’s eye was a mapping expedition, putting eyeballs on a jungle world from ground level. The platoon would get mission-specific scanners and flag mineral deposits and mark hazards. Sounded like work for an engineering corp, not a fighting platoon.

  Again, though, barring unexpected complications, the Cold Brotherhood might manage.

  But the one Reggie settled on promised a battle. There was something to be said about proving his chops to a new command. Uneventful escorts and jungle surveying might be missions, but they weren’t combat missions in the standard sense of the word. One might turn into a battle; the other sounded like grunt work.

  Reggie rounded up his platoon in the hangar for a pre-mission briefing. As he suspected, Grant was a no-show.

  “All right, raw meat. Here’s our assignment. There’s a House Virgo research station on Tellurak IV. The indigenous creatures they’re studying are being hunted by poachers. Our job is to find the poachers’ base of operations and eliminate them.”

  Kim shrugged. “Sounds easy enough.”

  “The forests are inhabited by large, reptilian predators that House Virgo suspects may have combat applications,” Reggie continued.

  Barclay raised a hand. “Um, you mean dinosaurs?”

  “No,” Reggie replied straight-faced. “They are large, reptilian predators with a dumb name that’s probably a trademark of Valhalla West. Plus, dinosaurs weren’t known to eat juggernauts.”

  The platoon snickered.

  “So, who here is riding in a rented juggernaut today?” Reggie asked.

  Barclay raised a hand. “Kestrel, as usual.”

  Iris shook her head. “I’m just about broke, but I’ve got my Chi-Ri.”

  “Same here,” Kim chimed in. “But I can’t afford a full rack of missiles.”

  “If you’ve got spare weapon systems, ballistic cannons and Miniguns are recommended against the dinos,” Reggie said, glad for once to have been able to look up useful info before getting dumped into the action. “Lasers will work too, but watch out for setting the forest on fire. None of us needs that, including the researchers. In fact, it’s a mission requirement.”

  “Requirement?” Iris echoed. “Not objective?”

  “Yup,” Reggie confirmed. “Half our payday is down the bleeper if we burn down part of the forest.”

  “Bleep me,” Iris muttered under her breath.

  Reggie grinned at the absurdity of the censoring protocol in this game. Maybe one of these days he’d mention it to Dr. Zimmerman and see if he could get the parental controls lifted from his account. In the meantime, it was funny.

  “We’ll be fanning out in a search pattern to cover more ground.”

  Kim cleared his throat. “Doesn’t splitting up usually get everyone killed?”

  “This is a military operation, not a horror movie,” Reggie said brusquely. “There’s no room for superstition. I’ll assign zones, and we’ll all be in constant contact. If anyone gets into trouble, the rest will be in range to assist. Any other questions?”

  There weren’t.

  “Then move out!” Reggie barked.

  ∞

  Reggie’s rented Sandpiper seemed designed to encourage its pilot to earn his credits and get back to his own juggernaut as fast as possible. While it had taken Reggie a little getting used to, going from T-bar steering on a modern army tank to a somewhat antiquated two-stick system—albeit with more buttons and triggers than vintage tanks had—the Sandpiper had a totally different console. The interior reminded him of a Cessna, complete with a flight yoke that looked better suited to a light aircraft. The cockpit was cramped and claustrophobic even for someone who’d driven an Abrams. And somehow, incongruously, it smelled like the inside of a bowling shoe.

  [Primary Objective: Locate Poachers’ Camp]

  [Primary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 0/3]

  [Secondary Objective: Kill Hostile Indigenous Creatures 0/???]

  [Mission Directive: Do Not Set Fire To Forest]

  “Barclay, start in hex Alpha four. Kim, Bravo niner. Larson, Bravo one-four. I’ll be taking Alpha one-niner,” Reggie radioed out the assignments as he fought to keep his Sandpiper on course. The controls were twitchy, too easy to oversteer. Not to mention the fact that even in the uneven forest terrain, it could reach freeway speeds.

  A chorus of acknowledgments echoed back to him.

  A warm buzz in his heart made Reggie feel at home. This might not be the group he’d gone to war with, but it had a hint of that homey bond of common circumstance and purpose. Kim, Barclay, and Iris didn’t feel like family, but they felt like the guys had his first week of boot camp.

  Setting the Sandpiper on autopilot for a bit, Reggie browsed the controls. He found one for the external mic and adjusted the volume until he could make out the sound of birds in the trees and the crunch of brush underfoot.

  Reggie’s Sandpiper bobbed along as he listened for signs of more dangerous wildlife.

  Distant Minigun fire had Reggie reacting for the radio. “Report in.”

  “Just deleted some velociraptor-looking thing,” Barclay reported. “No sign of others.”

  [Secondary Objective: Kill Hostile Indigenous Creatures 1/???]

  Reggie scanned the forest but saw nothing. “Well, if they didn’t spot the drop ship or hear us stomping around the forest in juggernauts, that ought to be the final hint to anyone down here that we’re looking for them.”

  Sunlight filtering through the canopy of towering trees glinted off Reggie’s windshield. All his career, he’d served in deserts. This forest reminded him more of weekends playing paintball than wilderness survival training.

  A low growl brought Reggie alert with a quick intake of breath. Where had that come from? Pulling up short in his Sandpiper, Reggie swiveled the torso to scan the forest visually. He cursed the ludicrous expense of tacking a life-form scanner to his rental. In a game predicated on giant robot combat, bio-sensors were a hobbyist’s commodity.

  There was nothing. Nothing at all that Reggie could see, at least.

  A reptilian form fell from the trees, latching onto the Sandpiper and scratching with its back claws. Gouges appeared in the transparent metal.

  Reggie yelped in surprise.

  “King! What’s wrong?” Iris radioed back.

  Reggie fought with the controls, both out of unfamiliarity and an inability to see where he was facing. “One of them’s on me!”

  He caught glimpses past the thing. It was green and scaly with spindly limbs corded with muscle just below the surface. Its wide jaws filled with razor-sharp fangs worked to get any part of the cockpit between its teeth, but the effort was in vain.

  Still, as more gouges appeared in the windshield, Reggie watched a hit point tick away from his frontal torso armor. If he didn’t do something, or someone didn’t come by with some well-aimed assistance, that thing was going to claw its way into the cockpit.

  “Can’t you shoot it?” Iris asked. She was within firing range with her Chi-Ri now, but the odds of hitting the dino were a lot lower than the chance of her blasting Reggie.

  “No angle,” Reggie radioed back, trying to remain calm. While the dino was making progress, it was slow going for the beast. “Wish this piece of bleep had real arms.”

  The Sandpiper was little more than articulated torso atop a pair of fleet-footed legs. Its armaments were mounted on swivels to either side of the torso and had no way to perform a windshield wiper function.

  “Line me up with a tree,” Reggie ordered. He began walking the Sandpiper in a slow turn.

  Iris didn’t ask why. Either she knew his plan or knew better than to question orders under fire. “Now!” she reported.

  Reggie stopped his rotation and held the steering yoke steady as he acceler
ated.

  The dino squashed against the windshield as the Sandpiper hit the trunk of a 2m-thick tree and rebounded. Cracks spider-webbed from the impact sight, but the dino fell away without so much as a smear of blood left to mark its demise. Reggie had splattered mosquitoes in his car that had left more of a mess.

  [Secondary Objective: Kill Hostile Indigenous Creatures 2/???]

  “Watch the trees,” Reggie ordered. “Some of them are arboreal ambush predators.”

  He tried to make it sound like he was cool with that, like it was the most natural thing in the world. But even his in-game body’s heart was beating rapidly. For the first time since he could remember, he wondered what his body back in the hospital must be going through. Was his real heart pumping this fast?

  Wary now, the platoon advanced slowly, sweeping both the ground and the branches overhead for signs of hostile life. Now and then, Minigun fire would split the forest air.

  [Secondary Objective: Kill Hostile Indigenous Creatures 5/???]

  [Secondary Objective: Kill Hostile Indigenous Creatures 12/???]

  [Secondary Objective: Kill Hostile Indigenous Creatures 23/???]

  Reggie wondered if there was a limit to the number of dinos or whether the game would just keep conjuring them up out of ones and zeroes the whole way. Any real animals with a lick of sense would have fled the area by now. But not only did the dinos lack the sense of a newborn fawn, the birds continued to sing in the trees.

  A pack of rhinoceros-looking lizards crashed out from the underbrush up ahead. Reggie saw them coming with time to spare and sprayed them with Minigun fire.

  [Secondary Objective: Kill Hostile Indigenous Creatures 27/???]

  The Minigun spun down once Reggie eased off the trigger. The external mic settings were working out nicely for giving him a little info about his surroundings, even if the shrieks of dying dinosaurs were harsh on the ears.

  Heat was looking good. Despite the 30°C temps outside, the Minigun bursts were barely registering.

  “Got something,” Kim reported. “E-M signature up in ZC10. I think we found our poachers.”

  “Kim, maintain position. Larson, rendezvous with Kim. Barclay, you circle around to the east. I’ll come around the west side. Meet me at Zulu-Golf one-zero.”