Vortex was aboard a drop ship inbound for Jenova City. They were landing outside the range of the defensive guns the city possessed. This was less a quick strike mission than an inexorable push.
When the landing ramp opened, Reggie strode out, struck by the planet’s beauty. They were protected from shelling by sweeping cliffs below an azure sky streaked with clouds. It was so much like Earth that Reggie wondered what the requirements might be for switching a faction headquarters. After all, Green Zone was merely a glorified smuggler base or mercenary den. This was a living, breathing planet with cities and a population of NPCs numbering in the millions.
[Primary Objective: Force the Surrender of Jenova City to Wounded Legion Alliance]
[Secondary Objective: Zero Civilian Casualties]
“Nice world you live in, King,” Pounder99 said. Though Reggie was the figurehead, Pounder99 was in charge of all but the one platoon with Vortex in it. “Not sure we’re going to pull it off, though.”
“I put that into every mission targeting a population center,” Reggie replied. “Maybe we can’t hit it every time, but it feels damn good when we do.”
“You hear that, everyone?” Pounder99 said. “No digital war crimes today.”
There were chuckles from Reggie’s radio speaker. He felt his cheeks warm.
Was it that different for everyone else? Was he the only one who got sucked into Armored Souls so deeply that he felt bad killing digital arrangements of data with all the personality of a flight check-in kiosk at the airport?
TARGET DATA ACQUIRED
Reggie’s mini-map lit with more information than he could process. It took several zooms in to get the individual blips to separate into distinct juggernauts with their combat designations visible. Without knowing the names of all his allies’ juggernauts, he kept the display set to player ID instead.
“Slow and steady win the battle,” Reggie radioed to everyone. “Mecha Frenzy has six other planets and seven other cities to worry about. We’re not expecting a major reinforcement action here. If we draw the short straw, I’ll give the order to dig in and wait for backup of our own.”
There were three drop ships left in orbit, waiting for word that one of the planetside operations needed assistance. It was amazing that they were gamers. Reggie hadn’t met many who would take an assignment that might amount to playing twenty questions for hours while never getting called up for duty.
Semper Fi were just wired a little differently.
Shells rained down. Reggie followed standard evasive procedures, varying his speed and heading just enough so that shells with an eight-second flight time couldn’t know where he’d be. Here and there, one of the juggernauts in the assault team took some damage from one.
But this wasn’t a fight that was going to be won or lost by artillery.
“We have units designed for close quarters,” Reggie radioed. “Once we spot the defenders, let’s turn this into a fight in a phone booth.”
“The hell’s a phone booth?” one of Pounder99’s guys radioed back.
Reggie couldn’t tell whether the guy was serious or just giving him a hard time. “It’s a porta-potty with a cell phone stuck to the wall instead of a shitter.”
“Roger that,” the same guy called back. “Galoshes engaged. Ready to wade into the shit.”
Sniper fire sizzled through the ranks as someone with an Anti-Matter Projector took position at Jenova’s outskirts. The first shot missed, luckily.
“Hex KP-1021,” someone announced, spotting the sniper’s location. Reggie took a visual and picked out a Shinigami poised atop a high-rise apartment building.
“LRM batteries, remove it,” Reggie ordered. He put a hand to his forehead as a wave of dizziness overcame him. But the episode passed quickly, and he blinked to recover his sense of the battlefield.
The sky filled with propellant trails left by the outbound long-range missiles. Reggie watched the tactical display, highlighting a wire frame for the sniper in the Shinigami on that rooftop.
There was an afterimage of red and yellow in Reggie’s vision, a remnant of the fraction of a second between the first missile hitting and the Shinigami exploding.
“Get among those buildings,” Reggie radioed out. “Happy hunting. Take out anything we didn’t bring with us.”
“But mind the civvies,” Pounder99 reminded everyone. “Treat ‘em like it was your kids in there playing Dolly Dress-up or Train Town.”
Much as he could tell by the marine lieutenant’s tone that he didn’t take these NPCs as anything more than cardboard cutouts, he appreciated that Reggie felt better running his ops like it was a real city with real people inside.
Wounded Legion’s alliance came on like the tide, and the sea wall of Jenova City wasn’t remotely prepared to stop them. Pounder99 drove a Titan at the front lines, willing to risk being taken out of the action in order to be at the heart of it. Reggie, by mutual agreement, hung in the middle of the pack to lessen the chances of a sniper like that Shinigami taking out the alliance’s leader.
Given the choice of dozens of targets, who would assume the Wolverine pilot was running the show?
About the time that Reggie was getting in among the skyscrapers at the city’s heart, the messages started popping up.
[Melmond Prime Captured by Wounded Legion]
Funny, but Reggie had never been absent for one of his team’s victories before. He’d always assumed the message would look the same as for the ones forcing the surrender. But that was always a mission objective. Reggie had no mission on Melmond Prime. He was just the one leading the faction who’d taken it.
Staring at the message, Reggie muttered beneath his breath. “Nice work, Chipz.”
[Pravoka Captured by Wounded Legion]
“Nice one,” Pounder99 radioed over his private channel to Reggie. “Since it was your guys who took it, mind getting ‘em to route that garrison of Kintaros and Chi-Tos this way? By the time they get here, we’ll have at least a couple cities in hand for them to defend.”
“On it,” Reggie confirmed. He switched over to a long-range frequency and signaled Monty. “Get that garrison spaceborne. We need those defenders here.”
“Things going badly?” Monty asked with a worried note in his voice.
“Nothing of the sort,” Reggie said. “I’ve got a planet with eight cities here, and it’s going to be the prime target for Mecha Frenzy to take back once night falls in Asia.”
Vortex rocked under an impact.
Vortex Torso: 68/80
“Dammit!” Reggie snapped, switching off his call with Monty. “Why’s everything got Mass Drivers when they shoot at me?”
His instinct was to trade fire with the Kintaro two blocks down, crouched behind an office building. Instead, he ducked behind the sky-rise apartment nearest him and circled around. Reggie was getting an inkling.
Somewhere out there, Frank was sitting in a nursing home with some weary caretaker spooning oatmeal or pudding into his mouth while he tried to talk her ear off about hippie music or the right way to make love to a prostitute. June had implied that he wasn’t always lucid out there in the real world. Armored Souls was where he felt like himself.
Today, Reggie was feeling a little Frank. He drew the juggernaut-sized Ninjato from the electromagnetic clamp on Vortex’s back that served as a sheath. Stalking was an iffy concept in a 65-ton walking tank, but Reggie had the advantage of dozens of other combatants cluttering the city and explosives detonating from all directions.
He didn’t need to be silent. Reggie just needed to be quieter than the rest of the war zone.
The pilot of the Kintaro spotted Reggie at the last second. It spun and swung its left-arm Mass Driver around to fire at Reggie point blank.
There was no target reticule. The Ninjato in Vortex’s grasp mimicked Reggie’s hand movements when he pulled the steering stick out of the console, tethered by an optical cable. With a swipe of his wrist, Reggie brought the blade across and turned
the Kintaro’s arm.
And not coincidentally, took a chunk out of its armor.
Kintaro[16] Left Arm: 14/30
A medium juggernaut sword was designed to do 15 points of damage, but Frank’s workmanship had upped this particular specimen to 16. With a Kintaro as an opponent, that was perfect. It meant that Reggie’s follow-up downward chop removed Kintaro[16]’s arm at the elbow.
If this was to be a brawl, the observer sizing up the fight on a spreadsheet might think that the heavy juggernaut would have the edge. However, the Wolverine was the largest class of medium juggernaut, with a baseline weight of 65 tons. The Kintaro was the lightest of heavies at 70.
And Reggie was armed with a sword.
And Vortex had both arms.
As the Kintaro attempted to bull rush Vortex, Reggie focused on Kintaro[16]’s legs. Three chops took the right leg out from under it. Reggie pulled back to keep out of the thing’s flailing reach as he hammered down on it with blow after blow until he’d caved in the cockpit.
Meanwhile, the battle for Jenova City had been raging all around him. The Mecha Frenzy forces were scattering like a freshman kegger when the cops show up.
[Midgar VII Captured by Mile High]
Mile High? They hadn’t discussed disposition of systems prior to the assault. Someone from that faction must have been the one to demand the surrender. Still, as long as they were allied, Reggie’s troops could use the cheap upgrades for their energy weapons.
“I’ve got a clear shot to the planetary capital,” one of the Semper Fi pilots reported. “Permission to take this fight to the ground.”
“Permission granted,” Reggie said. “Unconditional. No exceptions.”
The last thing Reggie needed was a complicated web of rules to satisfy before the AI would relinquish control.
[Shinra City Captured by Semper Fi]
“Your people do good work,” Reggie radioed over to Pounder99.
“People say marines eat, breathe, and shit fighting,” Pounder99 replied. “Well, this game just adds sleeping to that list.”
[Mysidia IV Captured by Wounded Legion]
Reggie grinned and switched frequencies yet again. He was practically becoming and old-fashioned telephone switchboard operator. But this was a call to June, so it lessened the annoyance at the constant channel hopping. “Congrats. Great…”
She hadn’t answered. The line was dead. Reggie waited.
A lump formed in his throat. Despite the raging battle, Reggie pulled back into cover and pulled up a menu.
[Faction > Roster > News (44) > Rewards > Info]
Reggie tapped on the roster link and sorted by location.
He didn’t have to scan far to see the entry he was both looking for and dreading.
[June - Offline (Deceased)]
“Shit,” he muttered. And here he’d been having a little moment of triumph, crushing back Mecha Frenzy forces and stealing planets across their territory. She must have been on one of the worlds where Liberty Clan chose to fight back.
Or maybe she’d gotten unlucky. Either way, the victory wouldn’t be as sweet without her there to celebrate with.
[Primary Objective Complete: Force the Surrender of Jenova City to Wounded Legion Alliance]
[Mission Successful - 23,500 XP - 20,000Cr]
Across the city, gunfire ceased. Mecha Frenzy silver trim shifted to Wounded Legion khaki wherever faction colors flew.
Despite June’s sacrifice, Reggie still needed to see it for himself.
[Green Zone]
[Tirith]
[Melmond]
[Pravoka]
[Mysidia IV]
Nibelheim wasn’t theirs yet. But for now, they controlled the city. Once they’d established ownership of all eight, this planet would belong to Wounded Legion as well.
“Congratulations, King,” Pounder99 radioed. “Nice work.”
Reggie mustered his enthusiasm. Far be it from him to seem even the slightest bit ungrateful after all Semper Fi had done for him. “Thanks, Brent. You guys are a pleasure to work with.”
“Aw, that’s only because you don’t know us yet,” Pounder99 replied jovially. “Sit us around a boring base on some planet, and you’ll be dying to let us off the chain again.”
Despite the sting of celebrating this victory without June, Reggie smirked. “No point waiting for the others to finish up. Call in those drop ships, and let’s take this party on the road.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
As tempting as it had been to take the newly captured planet Nibelheim as Wounded Legion’s headquarters, there was a 72-hour blackout on designating a new holding. Since a faction’s main holding was impervious to attack, that prevented suicide attacks that capture a planet with no hope of keeping it other than to designate it their headquarters.
So it was that after the battled died down and the beers flowed at a fancy pub in downtown Jenova city, Reggie found his way back to the Green Zone and collapsed in his quarters. Taking up the tablet computer from his bedside table, he checked his messages.
[Faction > Roster > News (71) > Rewards > Info]
With a sigh, Reggie took a pass through his news feed, killing standardized messages and updates about conquests he was already aware of.
[Faction > Roster > News (21) > Rewards > Info]
Curiosity getting the better of him, Reggie found the first message from Freedom Coach Napoleon:
“Think you’re pretty smart, huh, dumb-ass? Baby got some friends together to fight his war for him? Liberty Clan is the land of the free and the home of the brave. You can’t beat us. We’ve still got you outnumbered. Your coward war crime tactics are FAIL TRAIN. I’ll come visit you in Loserville, but I won’t stay long, sucker.”
Not exactly the Freedom Coach at his most eloquent. Reggie smirked at the screen. “You’re the one who brought in friends first, punk.”
He scanned down to the next message from Napoleon. The time stamp put it shortly after the main landing force arrived on Nibelheim.
“More coward tactics. Just diversion. Coward plan. Come fight us like men, bro. With clan names like Semper Fi, your buddies ought to act like marines, not cocksuckers.”
Reggie was tempted to forward the message to Lt. Cutler just for a laugh. Then he realized that he might be putting some poor, scrawny, low self-esteem troll in danger out in the real world. Deep down, he knew none of the marines would stoop to hurting the guy, but the last thing he needed was to drag this business back to the real world by making it personal.
He skipped down to the next message, once Wounded Legion started taking planets.
“You and your friends are so cute. Maybe you thought you could win. Enjoy the sightseeing. Those planets are coming right back to us. You just watch.”
Then there was another just after the last city fell and Nibelheim switched to Wounded Legion control.
“Nice. Pick on a faction that’s on America Time, why don’t ya? Mecha’s gonna take that place back first thing after logging in tonight. Don’t get comfortable. Keep your dirty feet off the furniture. Plus, I’m pretty sure you hacked the defenses at Mysidia IV. I’m putting in a support ticket. Bet you don’t see this thanks to your BAN, cheater.”
For now, that was the last of Napoleon’s ranting, but there was a separate message from AmuroRay, leader of the Mecha Frenzy faction:
“Why have you attacked only us? Liberty Clan has attacked you more and taken more. Please reclaim lost planets from them before taking from us. Have a nice war. Please do not be unfair in the future. kthx. AmuroRay.”
Pretty good English from someone who presumably didn’t speak it natively. Reggie couldn’t resist a reply, however. He tapped it into his tablet.
“Greetings, AmuroRay. I don’t know what Freedom Coach Napoleon promised you to join this war, but I assure you that you are going to lose more than you gain. Every day you wake up to go to work, you will have to wonder how many planets you’ll be missing when you come back. I imagine it will
take weeks or months to reverse the damage you are about to suffer. You joined an alliance against a smaller, weaker faction, and now you are no longer at an advantage. If you end your alliance with Liberty Clan, I will consider making peace with just you. Freedom Coach Napoleon will stand alone. If you continue in your alliance, I promise you we will focus on Mecha Frenzy every night. War isn’t fair. Reggie King, Sgt. US Army. (I know from experience).”
Reggie relaxed, sitting at the head of his bed and slumping against the wall with the catharsis of having put the ball in Mecha Frenzy’s court. A short while later, there was a knock at his door.
“What’s up?” he asked.
Chase poked his head in. “June’s back. You know, in case that sort of thing interests you.”
Reggie was up as if he’d been spring-loaded.
He found her milling around the rec room, chatting with some of the newer Wounded Legion members and a pair of lingering faction leaders waiting for a briefing on their next mission.
“Hey!” Reggie called out as he entered. “Look who’s back among the living.”
June glanced his way, forced a smile, and resumed her conversation.
Reggie drifted in, trying to be cool about it.
“I think we continue our attacks on Mecha Frenzy first thing tomorrow night,” Pounder99 was saying when Reggie came within earshot. “Turn the screws. Really make them see the price they’re paying for their alliance with L-Clan.”
He got a kick out of Brent’s reluctance to ascribe the name “Liberty” to them.
“Backup plan,” Reggie said, joining in a conversation that certainly concerned him as faction leader. “I’m going to be hanging out in game today. I expect that by the time you log back in, I’ll have negotiated a peace deal with Mecha Frenzy. I don’t think their hearts are in it.”
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