“Reggie!” Iris shouted, plowing her way through the crowd when she spotted him. She crushed Reggie in a hug and clung around his neck. “We were worried about you.”
“I’m fine,” Reggie replied. He wrapped his arms around Iris just to keep her weight from straining his neck. “What’s been going on? I was just catching a nap out of game.”
“A nap?” Kim replied, incredulous. “Man, you’ve been gone days.”
Chase sighed. “Good to see you, boss. You claiming you were in a hospital and all, we thought something bleepy might have happened to you.”
Reggie leaned down until Iris’s feet touched the floor, then untangled her arms from around him. “Like I said, I’m fine. What’s with you guys going out on missions without me?”
“What part of ‘it’s been days’ were you not clear about?” Kim asked.
Reggie looked from one face to the next. There was no sign that this was a prank. “Was I really gone that long?”
“Yeah,” Chase replied. “All in favor of King as new platoon leader?”
“Aye,” Kim, Iris, and Barclay called out in unison.
[Platoon ‘Cold Brotherhood’ Has New Commander: King]
“The night is young,” Chase said. “OK, boss. Pick us a winner, and let’s see what your Wolverine can do.”
Reggie leaned back and stretched. “I already picked. I’m ready to ride when you kids are.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Sand blew across copper-hued dunes, painting ridgelines in the desert landscape. It was possibly the first time Reggie had seen a desert and found it beautiful.
He’d seen a lot of shitty deserts on deployments.
The drop ship rose into orbit behind them, leaving Reggie and the four other juggernauts of the Cold Brotherhood behind. It was just them and their mission now. It was time to dig some bandit scum out of their holes.
[Primary Objective: Clear Bandit Fortress]
[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 0/14]
[Secondary Objective: Destroy Targets of Opportunity 0/8]
The mission backstory was that the bandits on this world had been performing hit-and-run raids on House Virgo assets using this desolate desert moon as a base of operations.
“Cold Brotherhood, report in,” Reggie radioed. He knew they were all with him. Everyone appeared on the mini-map. All Reggie wanted was to hear competent human voices answering back.
“Larson.”
“Barclay, reporting in.”
“Kim here.”
“Yippee-ki-yay, mother bleep.”
Reggie pursed his lips until he rounded up the scattered shreds of his sanity. “I’m going to kill you, Chase.”
“Roger that, boss,” Chase replied, grin evident even over the scratch radio signal. “Just wanted you to know why I never work with NPCs anymore.”
“Straightforward mission, people,” Reggie radioed out, trying to regain some professionalism. “We’re outnumbered, but we have tactical superiority and more firepower than the fourteen juggernauts this bandit crew has. They’re light on their hydraulic feet, not designed to go toe-to-toe.”
“Look who’s acting tough now that he has a jug with some armor,” Iris teased.
“Right juggernaut for the right job,” Reggie replied evenly, not rising to the bait. “We stick together, save missiles for surprise flanking maneuvers they might spring on us, and cut a swath for their front door. This isn’t a scalpel mission; we’re knocking on that door with a sledgehammer.”
“So you’re saying we are the ones who knock?” Chase asked.
Not deviating from his path through the ankle-deep sand drifts, Reggie extended his Wolverine’s left arm and aimed one of his Beam Cannon-Ls at Chase’s Jackal. At such close range, the beam wouldn’t converge, but it would still melt a nice hole in that head armor on Chase’s juggernaut.
“Right. No more wisecracks,” Chase blurted hurriedly. “Got it.”
“Save it for the debrief,” Reggie replied dryly. “I’m sure it’ll all be just as hilarious later.”
A red ping lit Reggie’s mini-map.
Iris was on top of it before he could identify what it was. “Aerial drone,” she barked. “It’s spotted us.”
“Got it,” Chase said even before he fired. A laser from his Beam Cannon-M cut the drone in two a second later.
[Secondary Objective: Destroy Targets of Opportunity 1/8]
“How the bleep did you know you were going to hit it?” Kim asked.
Reggie wanted to know that, too. According to his pilot stats, Chase only had four more points in Gunnery than he did. No way that could have been a sure shot.
Chase giggled over the radio. “I had a 74 percent chance to look like a psychic or a dead-eye. I play the odds. Still, that one blast was rough on heat. Just walking’s got my engine all toasty.”
“Everyone bear that in mind,” Reggie reminded them. “This heat’s no joke. It’s 55°C out there. If anyone overheats, someone shield them from fire until the cool-down cycle ends. Understood?”
A garble over the radio sounded enough like a bunch of “yesses” that Reggie was satisfied. These weren’t brainless black boxes plugged into a cockpit; they were living, thinking players with creativity and ambition. They wanted the mission to succeed as much as Reggie.
The bandit camp appeared on the horizon as Reggie crested a ridge. The console of the Wolverine was a dream, spacious and well laid out. It reported the distance to the compound at 2900m.
“Barclay,” Reggie radioed out, including everyone in the broadcast. “You picking up anything on that fancy radar extender you just bought?”
“Nada,” Barclay reported. “I’m guessing they’re hunkered down inside. Why face us out here before their fixed defenses soften us up? I think we—”
“Incoming missiles,” Iris snapped.
Everyone turned their gazes skyward. The clear blue sky was filled with a locust swarm of warheads streaking in their direction.
The Chi-Ris opened fire with their Miniguns, as did Barclay in his new Kestrel. Here and there, explosions appeared amid the cluster of missiles like lone kernels of popcorn bursting on a stovetop. There weren’t enough getting shot down.
Then Chase opened fire with every laser on his Jackal.
The sky itself seemed to catch fire as missiles detonated along the arc of multiple weaving laser beams.
Reggie’s Wolverine rocked under the impact as the remaining missiles tore into the platoon.
When he recovered from the jolt, Reggie checked the platoon status before the damage to his own juggernaut. Yellow pockmarked the wire frames of all five juggernauts, but the Cold Brotherhood had weathered the storm.
The Wolverine provided detailed technical data on the attacks’ effects, at least to its own systems. He’d taken 8 points of damage to his torso armor, 3 points to his left arm, 2 to his right, and 4 to both legs. The head, with Reggie inside, had somehow come out unscathed. A blinking on the temperature control panel indicated one of Reggie’s heat sinks was offline thanks to a critical hit. On board systems would have it operational at half effectiveness in another 30 seconds.
“Stick together,” Reggie warned. “If we get another salvo like that, concentrate fire.”
“You guys go ahead,” Chase radioed back. “I’m red-lining my temperature gauge. That burst from my lasers came close to frying me.”
“How’d they pull that off?” Kim asked as the four juggernauts marched forward in a cluster, Barclay at the rear to use the larger juggernauts as cover. “We’re outside max range on even a long-range missile.”
“Base defenses,” Iris replied. “Someone in there has either custom hardware or the Mad Scientist perk.”
“Bleeping cheating NPC bleeps,” Chase griped. “Half those missiles should have exploded in their bleeping lab overjuicing the range like that. No player would get away with it.”
“Maybe if they farmed missiles, shipping them offsite in batches?” Kim ventured
.
“Enough chatter,” Reggie snapped. “Speculate later. For now, keep your eyes on the skies.”
It had been one of Reggie’s first commanding officers who’d mentioned in passing that orders with a bit of “snazz” to them stuck better in the minds of subordinates. Rhymes, alliteration, colorful imagery… anything that made it catchy made it less likely to be forgotten or misinterpreted.
But there wasn’t a second volley of ultra-long-range missiles coming. Instead, the next indication of hostile forces they encountered were a series of towers at the fortress wall.
“Shower thought…” Chase said pensively. “Who does the civil engineering work for bandits? I mean, if I owned an interstellar construction firm, would I take a job working for an itinerant group of bandits? Do the bandits have their own architect, or did they have to hire one of those, too?”
“I always imagined that they took over existing bases,” Iris replied.
Chase wasn’t ready to quit gnawing at that bone just yet. “Yeah, but if you look at the map from the mission briefing, the overhead view kinda looks like the bandits’ logo.”
“200m to firing range,” Reggie replied. One of the features of the Wolverine’s VeyTech-7 computer systems was the ability to mark juggernauts and fixed weapons with circles indicating weapons ranges. “Use missiles to take out the following two targets.”
Reggie marked MRM_Turret[1] and MRM_Turret[2] for the group.
TARGET DATA SHARED
The Wolverine’s computer had a soft-spoken female voice that echoed the target information. It sent a little shiver down Reggie’s spine, knowing that shit was about to start exploding.
The turrets were helpless targets. Against a platoon without a pair of LRM-toting missile platforms like the Cold Brotherhood’s Chi-Ris, it might have been an active deterrent. But medium-range missiles against long, it was just costing them credits on ammo replenishment.
As the two missile turrets blinked out of existence in Reggie’s HUD, the enemy must have realized they were in for a fight. Along the fortress walls, the upper halves of juggernauts peeked into view.
“Close to engage,” Reggie radioed calmly. “Fire at will.”
That was the order of a hunter letting his dogs off their leash.
The Cold Brotherhood spread out. Barclay angled along the wall, searching out potential flankers. Kim and Iris paused to let off another volley of missiles before resuming their approach.
With a focus on medium range combat, Chase and Reggie continued a steady advance. The Wolverine was such a smooth ride that if it weren’t for the thud of steel feet in the desert sand, it would have seemed as if he floated on the wind.
Zooming a sub-window of the HUD on the wall, Reggie tried to hold a steady aim on one of the peeking juggernauts.
[Gargoyle - 33% To Hit]
[Gargoyle - 35% To Hit]
[Gargoyle - 29% To Hit]
It was the best Reggie was liable to do until he either got closer or stopped to line up the shot. He squeezed the trigger.
A scorch mark appeared just below the Gargoyle’s head, marring the stone but doing nothing to his target. Reggie kept an eye on his temperature gauge to know when it was safe to fire again.
Still zoomed in on the Gargoyle, Reggie watched a pair of stabbing blue beams of light converge and the juggernaut’s head explode.
[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 1/14]
Chase cackled into the radio. “That’s what four more points of Gunnery and a gun stabilizer module will get you.”
“How’re your heat sinks?” Reggie called over, switching to a frequency that would only come through to Chase. It was another nice command-and-control feature of the Wolverine, being able to subdivide conversations among the platoon.
“Roasty toasty,” Chase replied flippantly. “But I’ve got it under control. Barring system damage, I’m not letting Diablo overheat. It would be a bad image for the lord of hell.”
“Communication relay’s over here,” Barclay reported. “I’ve got it.”
[Secondary Objective: Destroy Targets of Opportunity 2/8]
Reggie took a long, calming breath. It was just such a joy commanding live people again. Initiative, judgment, competence… everything the Four Stooges lacked. It was almost as if the developers of Armored Souls wanted players working together.
By the time Reggie and Chase arrived at the fortress gates, they’d picked off another four enemy juggernauts.
“Whaddaya say, boss?” Chase asked. “Burn through it?”
The gate was half as tall as the Wolverine and made of steel. Cutting through was a viable option, but in the desert heat, it would also take a long time with lasers and require carefully managing heat dissipation against cutting power.
“Lemme try something first.”
The Wolverine was a 65-ton beast, almost as heavy as his Abrams—which Reggie was comparing things to less and less the more he played. But while the Abrams was low to the ground and dense as hell, the Wolverine had leverage and some crazy, futuristic fusion reactor that gave it more grunt.
Tugging gently on the control sticks, Reggie backed Vortex up and turned a shoulder.
Then, with a running start, he slammed into the gate with a crushing blow.
A shoulder actuator went red without any appreciable damage to the armor around it, but the gate tore free of its moorings. Whoever had built a fortress in this desert hadn’t made it resistant to a borderline-heavy medium juggernaut.
As soon as the gate toppled to the ground with a dull ringing clatter that sounded like someone hadn’t properly tuned a gong, the Cold Brotherhood came under fire.
Lasers carved lines through the cloud of dust and sand the fallen gate kicked up. Hit warnings popped up in Reggie’s HUD, showing a point of damage here, two points there, pockmarking his frontal armor in all zones. One flash of light momentarily blinded him as it stuck Vortex’s windshield.
Chase returned fire, spreading out his laser blasts into the sandstorm.
Reggie waited for the wind to carry away enough of the debris in the air for him to make out a target.
[Sparrow - 73% To Hit]
Good enough, Reggie thought. He squeezed the trigger and four Beam Cannon-Ms struck the tiny juggernaut. The Sparrow smoked from its cockpit and stumbled to a halt.
[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 6/14]
Spotting targets behind cover farther into the base, Reggie ducked behind the Sparrow for a spot of cover. It was a little like hiding behind a mailbox in a firefight, but it was better than standing out in the open.
Quickly, he tapped mini-map location for two Gargoyles and relayed them to Iris and Kim, who were still outside the wall.
TARGET DATA SHARED
Reggie wasted shots over the two juggernauts’ heads, just hoping to keep them stationary.
Medium-range missiles snaked overhead. Some struck the buildings. Others hit home and rocked the Gargoyles. One exploded half a second later.
[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 7/14]
“Racked him!” Chase called out. “Nice one.”
Reggie had drawn the same conclusion. Must have been a fire in the ammo rack that didn’t take long to detonate the whole magazine.
Emboldened, Chase rushed forward and poured laser fire into the second Gargoyle, weathering a few laser hits in return but finishing it off.
[Secondary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 8/14]
“Kim,” Reggie radioed out. “Enter the base, and follow me. We’ll root out the remaining hostiles on the west side. Chase, take Larson and clear the east. Barclay, keep sweeping; ID targets but do not engage. You light ‘em, we fight ‘em.”
“Roger that,” Barclay replied.
The remaining foes didn’t pose much resistance. Reggie and Kim worked in tandem, pinning down enemy juggernauts while Kim fired heat-seeking missiles from blocks away. From keeping tabs on the mini-map, it appeared that Chase and Iris were d
oing likewise. Now and then, Barclay would radio in the location of their next victim.
[Secondary Objective Complete: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 14/14]
“Great work everyone,” Reggie radioed to the platoon, a swell of pride filling his chest. They’d taken their lumps and bruises, but this was a solid win for the—
[Bonus Objective: Enter Bandit Fortress and Capture Kason Gouge]
[Bonus Objective Requirement: Do Not Destroy Bandit Fortress]
“Bleep, yeah!” Chase cheered. “Special mission!”
Reggie stared at his HUD, incredulous. “What? We won. What’s this bleep about?”
“It’s not a purely random-generated mission,” Iris explained. “It was scripted. We’ve got a new mission objective and probably a bleep-load of XP if we pull it off. Come on.”
The other juggernauts of the Cold Brotherhood were all pulling up to the fortress’s main entrance, a human-sized facility built into the mountainside. Reggie watched, dumbfounded, as the other pilots opened their cockpits and climbed down to the sandy, windswept ground.
“Guys?” Reggie asked. “Where are you all going?”
“Inside,” Iris reported. “I know you’re the platoon commander and all, but get your bleep down here and get moving.”
Reggie slowly reached across the console and tapped the cockpit release. It hissed with the release of an environmental seal and hot, arid wind blew in at once. Taking a long breath, Reggie unbuckled his safety harness and started down the ladder concealed along the Wolverine’s left leg.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Chase led the way.
Reggie didn’t know what to make of this, but he knew he wasn’t a fan. They were in what looked to be an Egyptian tomb that had been converted for modern military use. The corridors were all yellowed stone blocks, floor, walls, and ceiling. But there were electrical and data conduits run along the way and LED glow-panels spaced in the ceiling at regular intervals.
“No one said there’d be infantry work,” Reggie grumbled.
Iris held up a blaster pistol and waggled it in front of Reggie’s face. “You think we carry these for decoration?”
Dead Mech Walking: a mech LitRPG novel (Armored Souls Book 1) Page 11