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

by Xavier P. Hunter

“You guys are stat-padding noobs,” Chase teased. He sent blue-hot blasts of laser fire into three Otsus in rapid succession. Two hit the mark while one aimed wide and etched the mountainside in the distance.

  [Primary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 12/60]

  “First miss,” Kim taunted. “Drinks are on Chase.”

  “Mine were moving targets, and I don’t have self-guided weapons,” Chase argued.

  Diablo and Vortex continued to advance on the Otsu parking lot as Kim and Iris kept back, using the rocky terrain for cover more out of habit than a need to defend themselves from the Otsus.

  Minigun fire pelted Vortex with a sound like loose change tumbling in the dryer. One lucky shot hit the Beam Cannon-M mounted on the left shoulder. All it did was start a 20-second cool-down timer on repairs.

  For what Reggie was looking for, that laser weapon wasn’t on the menu.

  Eschewing shots with his arm-mounted Beam Cannon-Ls, Reggie looked for something to test his Plasma Launcher on. Luckily, one he got within the weapon’s range, it would be a target-rich environment.

  1200m…

  1000m…

  900m…

  850m…

  Reggie’s finger hovered over the trigger, his intended victim already picked out.

  [Otsu[17] - Out of Range]

  800m…

  [Otsu[17] - 54% To Hit]

  Heedless of damage and accuracy penalties for the long-range shot, Reggie pulled the trigger. There was a sound like a hammer striking a high-tension cable, fuzzy and resonant at once. The blast caught one of the idle Otsus in the hip, blasting through both the upper leg and lower torso.

  [Primary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 21/60]

  Reggie was well behind in the race. Aside from Barclay, who was circling wide of the battle site toward the broadcast tower, the rest of them were picking off light juggernauts that ran around like a flock of headless chickens.

  Thrown into the thick of the combat, Reggie was wading through piles of still-smoldering scrap metal, looking for upright targets.

  [Otsu[19] - 56% To Hit]

  Squeeze trigger. Electronic blat noise. Plasma tore through another target. The slight inaccuracy was still enough that the glancing blast ripped open the juggernaut’s torso.

  [Primary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 24/60]

  Reggie was falling behind.

  He closed to within 600m of the next cluster of targets, and the hit indicator jumped.

  [Otsu[44] - 89% To Hit]

  Limbs were left standing headless as Reggie annihilated the upper half of Otsu[44].

  [Otsu[40] - 87% To Hit]

  [Otsu[26] - 91% To Hit]

  [Otsu[9] - 96% To Hit]

  In successive shots, Reggie took out three more of the juggernauts, watching with a wary eye as his temperature gauge rose steadily.

  [Primary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 47/60]

  “What’s the matter?” Iris radioed over in a singsong voice. “Getting a little hot in those pants?” She and Kim had already laid waste to most of the idle Otsus. Chase was running down some of the stragglers.

  Meanwhile, Reggie watched his temperature gauge slowly drop back down to safe levels, ambling forward at half speed as fleet-footed light juggernauts did everything in their power to get clear of him.

  By the time Reggie felt free to let loose with the Plasma Launcher again, the battle was all but over. He couldn’t get within firing range of any more little juggernauts before the rest of the Cold Brotherhood mopped them up.

  [Primary Objective Complete: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 60/60]

  “Great work guys,” Reggie radioed to the platoon.

  Chase radioed back immediately. “Pfft. Says the guy who came in last place.”

  “Except for Barclay,” Kim added.

  Iris sounded concerned. “Um. Where is Kim?”

  Reggie scanned his mini-map.

  A broadcast interrupted him. It was on visual, and it showed a faux 3D image of Barclay. “Hey, Juki-sen. We’re in your factory, blowin’ up your dudes. That’s what you get for betting on bleeps like House Risun!”

  [Secondary Objective Complete: Broadcast Message to Juki-sen Heavy Industry]

  “Found him,” Reggie said with a suppressed sigh. “He’s at the communications relay.”

  A new objective popped up on Reggie’s HUD.

  [Bonus Objective: Destroy Juggernaut Factories #2, #3, #4 Before Shuki-sen Reinforcements Arrive]

  “Uh, hey Barclay,” Chase radioed. “You know we didn’t finish the primary objectives yet.”

  “Well, get your bleeps in gear,” Barclay replied. “I’m seeing a countdown on the console here that says Juki-sen will have reinforcements here in under ten minutes.”

  “Fan out!” Reggie ordered. “Kim, head to Echo four-four. Iris, Kilo seven-zero. Chase, get down to Juliet one-zero-five.”

  “Bleep you,” Kim radioed. “You’re staying to kill factory #1.”

  “I’ve got the slowest ride,” Reggie explained. Justifying orders was something he was used to doing in the field. It was a habit he’d like to break the Cold Brotherhood of—the sooner the better. “Plus, I’ll take care of calling the drop ship back to extract us.”

  “But I wanted time to salvage,” Iris said. “I spent so much on ammo this mission that I’m barely going to break even.”

  “But you won,” Chase pointed out. “A loss letting me or King win would have been cheaper overall for everyone.”

  “Cut the chatter, and get those factories down,” Reggie replied.

  “I’ll tag salvage for you,” Barclay offered. “I can’t blow up bleep in this thing.”

  “Take your shopping list to a private frequency,” Reggie cut in before he was subjected to the rundown of everything Iris wanted from the battlefield.

  Reggie maneuvered through more wreckage than he could identify, not bothering to try tagging anything for salvage. The carnage had left little more than twisted steel and fried electronics. When he reached the shipping doors of the facility, his Plasma Launcher made short work of opening a hole.

  To fit Vortex through would have required several more shots or using the juggernaut’s hands to rip the armored steel open. With a little careful aim, however, medium-range missiles fit through just fine. Reggie backed away until he was in optimal firing range and fed a string of missiles down the building’s throat.

  Reggie had served with a E-2 from the Louisiana bayou who’d claimed to have tossed a lit M-80 firecracker into the mouth of a gator. The sight the private had described could well have been a scaled-down version of the sight now unfolding before Reggie’s eyes—albeit with fewer gumbo ingredients to be had in the aftermath.

  The mountain erupted, coughing forth smoke and fire, choking on secondary explosions as chemicals and munitions stored inside overheated.

  [Primary Objective: Destroy Juggernaut Factory #1]

  Reggie turned his attention to watching the skies, keeping tabs on the platoon’s locations on the mini-map, and grinning like a bayou gator hunter with his first explosive kill.

  [Bonus Objective Complete: Destroy Juggernaut Factories #2, #3, #4]

  “Pack it up,” Reggie ordered. “Turn out the lights, pay the band, and let’s get off this rock.”

  [Mission Successful - 3950 XP - 11,000Cr]

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  They’d loitered in the hangar after the mission—all but Iris. The Cold Brotherhood had just pulled off a nice payday out of a mission that looked like a wet sack of crap at the outset. The primary mission had been a wash as predicted, but the bonus mop-up of the rest of the factory buildings had earned them a pretty penny.

  “I’m thinking of springing for some of those compact heat sinks,” Chase said, swiping through options on one of the shopping kiosks.

  Kim was shoulder to shoulder with Chase, jockeying for position. “I want to get one of those advanced guidance computers. My Tensai-A just isn’t cutting it anymore. I
wasted six missiles on moving targets that it couldn’t track. A Tensai-C will pay for itself just in ammo costs over the long haul.”

  Swiping to the aforementioned computer, Chase pointed out the cost. “Looks like that’d blow your budget. Plus, I’m sure you can appreciate the irony of spending money from this mission on a Juki-sen computer system.”

  “Fine,” Kim muttered. “I’ll just run without insurance until I build up another next egg.”

  Chase spun him around. “You nuts, bro?”

  Off to the side, Barclay shrugged. “I do it all the time.”

  Chase aimed a finger at Barclay. “Exhibit A. Brand new Imp after riding around in rentals, and he still hasn’t learned his lesson.”

  “Hey,” Barclay snapped. “Playing au naturel keeps me sharp. I don’t piss away 25 percent of my income so I can play like a bleep.”

  Reggie kept clear of the fray. “Well, I’m banking mine. The Plasma Launcher trial run was a success. I’ll work on keeping up with the energy spec and see if I can keep some more uptime on it.”

  “Heat aside, they’re brilliant weapons,” Chase agreed. “Although you picked a piss-poor mission to test it on. You should have gone for something with one huge juggernaut, like the five of us against a Dragon or something. The penetrating power on it would have shone through.”

  “Just as glad you didn’t,” Barclay commented.

  “Can you just get out of the way so I can order my Tensai-C?” Kim asked, giving Chase a shove with his hip.

  Chase backed away from the kiosk, hands up in mock surrender. It was amusing to see since, at least in game, Chase was bigger and brawnier, not to mention he was packing the heaviest sidearm and a tactical vest. If he had to lay odds, Reggie would have given Chase 6-to-1 to scatter Kim’s teeth across the hangar floor if it came to blows.

  The overhead crane was already working on Barclay’s Imp. In the post-demolition scramble to extract, he’d had the time to scrounge up an Otsu with a working sensor package that was better than his Imp came with stock. The hangar’s automated robot arms were busily extracting the old system to make room for the new.

  “Well, I’m putting in an order on one heat-sink upgrade,” Chase concluded as Kim finished his purchase of a new guidance computer. “But I’m keeping the insurance on Diablo. You guys might think your jugs are replaceable, but I’ve sunk too much into him to risk going without.”

  The four of them hung out and watched the installations. Something about the whole construction process felt primal, like watching the cosmos itself assembly new gods.

  Or maybe Reggie was just getting introspective again, facing the prospect of another sixteen or eighteen hours until his friends showed back up to play robots with him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The next mission was announced in advance. Reggie reviewed all the intel he could find in preparation for House Virgo’s retaliatory strike on House Risun.

  In many ways, the mission was the mirror of the defensive battle they’d fought in Colfield. But whoever planned House Virgo’s attacks knew better than to bite off more than he could swallow. Whether it was Specker, someone else, or just the AI, he’d picked out a smaller city, less than a quarter the size, and the insertion point was to be inside the city itself.

  There was a chance, just based on the mission design, of the whole thing going horribly awry. The drop ships were far from indestructible. Formation flying and rudimentary defenses would help, but any one of the drop ships could be shot out of the sky before ever touching down.

  It was a bold plan. Measured risk. High reward.

  It wasn’t the sort of mission Reggie normally planned for his own platoon, NPC or player-filled. He was more of a “let’s win this thing and bring everyone home safe” sort of tactician. Overplan and overwhelm—that was his style.

  “Just logged in and saw,” Chase said with a gleam in his eye. “This is where we separate the cannon fodder from the tactical strike teams.”

  Reggie pursed his lips. He wasn’t sure yet which side the Cold Brotherhood fell on. They were still small potatoes in the grand scheme of the faction. “What do we want to do if we get the call to ship out before the others get here?”

  “They’ll be here,” Chase assured him. “Push notification for a big faction-wide mission like this. Nobody’s missing this for date night or one more swing on the pole. Whatever bleep everyone’s got in their night life, this is taking priority.”

  That drew a chuckle from Reggie. He might be stuck in here, but the rest of them had a choice. There were plenty of places he’d rather be than in Armored Souls. Maybe he just wasn’t the addict that Chase was or that Chase assumed everyone else to be.

  “Made it!” Iris shouted across the lounge, drawing a perfunctory cheer from the crowd. They weren’t co-workers wearing the same colors tonight; they’d be brothers and sisters in arms. Everyone was in this together. Iris didn’t join them in the booth but stood beside it and stole Reggie’s drink, throwing back the last of his beer. “Any sign of Kim or Barclay?”

  “Kim’s got some work thing,” Chase said. “He’ll be here, but it’ll be like that movie scene where the school bus leaves, and the kid has run to catch up. Barclay’s down in the hangar.”

  Borrowing Chase’s tablet, Reggie ran them through the mission briefing. He had figured out the optimal location for a group of mid-tier juggernauts and matching pilots in the coming battle. None of them were suited to be the spearhead of an assault like this, but they could earn their XP by the truckload intercepting the forces sent in to stop that spearhead.

  “I’m already planning out my next Pilot Points,” Chase said as Reggie concluded the overview.

  Reggie checked the time. Under two minutes to go. He slid the tablet back to Chase, his heart already quickening in anticipation.

  Specker’s voice blared over the PA system. All heads in the lounge looked up despite their being nothing to see. “All right, ladies. Time to earn those House Virgo emblems you wear like team logos. You’re not football or basketball fans rooting for House Virgo; you’re the team. Time to remember that an attack on House Virgo is an attack on you. Time to pay back House Risun for their assault on Colfield. All hands, report to drop ships.”

  Reggie pushed himself out of the booth and joined the dash for the hangars to load juggernauts into the drop ships. Again, Specker had proved himself less than a stellar orator. For a second there, he’d expected Specker to break out the tune to “Turn! Turn! Turn!” with his time for this and time for that.

  But Reggie knew it was the time to kick some ass.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Reggie wasn’t generally a praying man, but a lot of soldiers gave it a shot when they came under fire with nothing else to do besides wait. If push came to shove, he usually skipped Jesus and prayed directly to Apache, god of close air support.

  Riding a drop ship into a direct insertion operation on an alien planet, Reggie wasn’t quite sure where to address any requests for supernatural assistance. He supposed one of the developers might be the right man for the job, but he’d be damned if he knew who’d programmed the game.

  So it was that Reggie and the Cold Brotherhood sat in their respective juggernauts, massive chassis secured snugly in the hold of a drop ship barreling straight into the line of anti-ship fire as orbital bombardment from House Virgo capital ships punched a hole in Dagwald’s domed shield for them to penetrate.

  “This is worse than airline turbulence,” Barclay commented over the platoon channel.

  Reggie forced a smile despite his own unease. “You’ve never ridden in a C-130, I take it.” Just then, the drop ship shook with an impact.

  “Bleep!” Iris swore, panting for breath. “I should have worked late tonight.”

  “I’ve never looked it up, but can you barf in game?” Kim asked.

  “Game, game, game, game,” Chase sang to an indistinct tune. “It’s just a game, game, game. Sit back, and enjoy the ride.”

 
; The squabbling calmed Reggie’s nerves. The aptness of the C-130 comparison nagged at him, dredging up real-world memories of a unique cocktail of smells mixing sweat, tank exhaust, and desert sand.

  Impacts came more frequently. The shaking of the drop ship was punctuated by a sudden sensation of free fall. Reggie rose in his chair until the safety restraints were the only thing keeping his backside against the seat.

  “Oh, bleeeeeeeeee—” Iris screamed.

  There was a thunderous crash as the drop ship struck the city.

  “Move out!” Specker radioed to all House Virgo forces.

  The cargo ramp of the drop ship lowered with a coughing of strained hydraulics. The city lay beyond, tilted at an angle; the ramp was struggling to force its way through the edge of an apartment building.

  The automatic release for the juggernaut tie-downs was offline. Reggie expected to lurch forward to a standing position under his own power at any moment, but he was stuck fast.

  Everyone was.

  “Cold Brotherhood, move out!” Reggie barked. Jamming the throttle to max, Vortex’s reactor whined. Joints protested. Electro-Active Polymers strained, and restraints snapped.

  “I’m stuck,” Barclay reported. His Imp lacked the grunt to tear itself free.

  Reggie aimed carefully with his Beam Cannon-M.

  [Imp - 3% To Hit (friendly)]

  “Just hold still,” Reggie warned. With a quick blast, he melted through the primary restraint holding the torso of the Imp in place.

  With a little leverage now, the Imp’s oversized light juggernaut engine roared and tore loose from the clamps holding its legs.

  The rest of the platoon joined the crush of robotic bodies piling out the back of the downed drop ship.

  [Primary Objective: Gain Control of Dagwald]

  “Disperse and deploy,” Specker ordered in a growl. “We still have the manpower for this attack. They missed their best and only chance to stop us. May the XP loss of Drop Ship Delta not be in vain.”

  Reggie blinked. Bringing up the faction tactical view on his console, he confirmed that they were missing 25 juggernauts already. The whole contingent from one drop ship had perished during descent.