“Medusa’s down,” said Jarek into the Scarlet team chat. “They got it with EMP Grenades.”

“Up for grabs?” Perri asked hopefully.

“Nah. Tyrian is chucking ‘nades in as I speak to kill the Xanthic passengers. Oh... and some rockets for good measure. The cabin’s wrecked. That thing ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Perri let out a pouty groan. “Bu-hut I wa-hanted it... Ugh! Rest in peace, Medusa.”

“That tank is like an insect in that way,” mused Maqsud. “Sturdy exoskeleton with a soft, vulnerable interior. So much for our comeback hopes...”

“It’s not over yet,” Nic said resolutely. “Xanthic just lost their greatest weapon. In fact, Team Tyrian may have just handed us our comeback.”

SCARLET: 19 | TYRIAN: 39 | XANTHIC: 35

Nic broadcasted confidence, but the scoreboard worried him. The more his squad inched up their kill count, the farther the other two squads seemed to pull ahead of them, and they were running out of time. Let’s see, the Medusa’s trashed from the inside, he strategized in his head. Tyrian already blew up our Centaur with their Cyclops. And Xanthic’s still got the Harpy. We could hop on a Satyr, but it has no weapons, and it wouldn’t be good for much except zipping two people around the battlefield in a hurry... Think, Siegfried. Think!

SHANTI [DEAD] SCARLET: 19 | TYRIAN: 39 | >XANTHIC: 36

“Come on, guys, let’s regroup,” Nic told his squad. “I’m tagging my location. I’m in an astrosteel tower, so it’ll provide us some cover, assuming the Harpy doesn’t spot us first.”

“On my way,” said Jarek.

“I’ll be there in 60 seconds,” Perri replied, “assuming that Harpy doesn’t divebomb me first. I hate that these squads already took away all my toys.”

Shanti’s thought-to-speech software interrupted the rest of the squad’s conversation. “[The Harpy killed me. I’m back now. I’ll go to the tagged location.]”

“I don’t suppose there’ll be much use for it,” said Maqsud, “but there’s a Jetpack just a short deviation from my route to you, Nic. Thought I’d keep you in the know.”

“Grab it,” Nic said immediately. “Grab it and do not lose it.”

“Oh, erm... Understood. Any particular good it’ll do us? I’m not arguing, just a bit curious as to your thought process.”

“We’re going to use it to gain some much-needed air supremacy.”

Perri snorted with laughter. “No offense, Nic, but if you’d rather the Harpy shoot you down in midair than on the ground, be my guest. You don’t need an expert’s opinion to tell you that a lone proxybot would lose any dogfight against a Harpy, 10 times out of 10.”

“You won’t be fighting the Harpy, Perri,” Nic replied. “You’re going to use the Jetpack to hijack it.”

There was silence in the team chat for a few seconds. “S-sorry,” Perri chimed back in, “I got... chills for a second. That may have been the coolest thing I’ve ever heard you say. I’m coming to you double-time!”

Nic grinned. I knew I wasn’t Squad Leader for nothing.

“I like where your head’s at, boss,” said Jarek when he reached the tower. “Mind tellin’ us how this’ll go down? I mean, what’s stoppin’ the Harpy from just killin’ Perri when she tries to go for it?”

“We’ll need to bait the Harpy into engaging us at this tower,” Nic explained just as Perri arrived. “I got this Sniper Rifle...” He patted the barrel of the weapon proudly. “...and Max, our resident sharpshooter, is going to be the triggerman.”

“I don’t follow,” said Scarlet 4 as he ascended the tower’s staircase, inert Jetpack attached to his proxybot. “I thought the whole idea was to acquire the Harpy. How will me shooting it out of the sky help the cause?”

“You won’t be.”

“Okay, Nicolas, can you just skip to the part where you stop being coy and explain—OH, now I see!” Max nodded, detaching the Upgrade Pak from his torso and handing it to Perri. “I’ll be missing on purpose, but getting just close enough to scare the pilot. They’ll see the vapor trails from my rounds and be baited into engaging the sniper before he kills them. I’ll be bait... well, I’m not as fond of that part—but I’ll be the bait so that Perri can Jetpack up out of hiding, yank open the hatch, and kick out the former pilot to their death. Am I correct?”

Nic gave him a thumbs-up. “See, you get me even when I’m coy.”

“That’s because I’m a genius, Nic.” Max accepted the Sniper Rifle, lifting it up to chest level and aiming down the scope at the battlefield. “And although I am quite the marksman, I’ve never had so much riding on nearly hitting a target.”

“If you so much as scratch that paint job, I’m teamkilling you,” Perri warned him. “Just... full disclosure.”

Maqsud shrugged. “Duly noted.”

Shanti was last to join the group, and when she did, Nic sent each member of Team Scarlet to their battle stations. Maqsud stood at the top of the tower so that he could snipe out the window and still be afforded some measure of cover from Harpy fire; his biggest threat was splash damage from missiles, but the window would be a tough needle to thread from a distance. Perri waited on the landing just below the tower’s lookout room, crouching just out of sight. This way, she’d be clear of all the heat put on Max, giving her time to execute her hijack.

Meanwhile, Nic, Jarek, and Shanti were spaced evenly farther down the stairs; the boys followed Shanti’s lead to maximize stealth, crouching and making their proxybots as small as possible, standing as still as they could manage.

This can work, Nic thought. It has to work. We’ve never lost a game of Arena and we’re not about to start today.

The first crack of Sniper Rifle fire rang out crystal clear in Nic’s ears, even from this distance, thanks to the thick atmosphere of Nereus. It took all his willpower not to flinch.

“Here they come,” said Max. “If that cockpit were open, by Jove, that pilot would feel the wind off that shot. Not to worry, though, Perri—your precious bird is yet unscathed!”

“Good,” Scarlet 3 replied. “Keep it up.”

“Ooh, that pilot is rather displeased with me.” Max giggled amusedly. “Full steam ahead! Perri, get ready.” Another crisp snap of gunfire issued forth from his weapon.

Nic realized he was holding his breath. He kept holding it. Come on. Almost here. That’s it, get tilted and take the bait... Seconds later, he heard the distant whirring of Harpy blades spinning furiously in the air overhead. “Wait until I give the signal, Perri,” he muttered into the team chat. Even though their audio outputs were off, he said it quietly out of instinct. “Okay, five... four...”

One last rifle shot, then Maqsud shouted, “Return fire!” Those were his last words before an explosion roared through the team chat. “Ouch, that smarts... What’s the word, Nic?”

“Not yet,” he answered. A pause. Then, “Perri, now! Go!”

Perri jumped off the tower landing. Flames gushed out of the bottom of her Jetpack as she soared upward toward the incoming Harpy, timed just right. Nic clenched his fists and waited for the hijack to happen.

Then, suddenly, an explosion.

PERRI [DEAD] MAQSUD [DEAD] NIANZU [DEAD] SCARLET: 19 | >TYRIAN: 42 | XANTHIC: 36

“No!” Nic shouted. The smoldering wreckage of the Harpy, which had exploded in the astrosteel tower’s lookout, rained down before his eyes, along with fragments of his squadmates’ proxybots. But Team Tyrian had netted three kills from it. Their Cyclops must still be operational.

The Cyclops was a bit clunkier than a four-seater Centaur but a bit more nimble than the heavy-duty Medusa tank. The all-terrain vehicle rumbled over the gravelly ground and swerved to face the tower, its forward-facing built-in Rocket Launcher still smoking from the multi-kill.

Nic was able to yell, “Scatter!” before the next attack.

JAREK [DEAD] SCARLET: 19 | >TYRIAN: 43 | XANTHIC: 36

He vaulted off the edge of his landing and accepted the fall damage as the lesser of two evils.

NIC [95%]

Shanti dropped down next to him, and she was in the process of turning to run, scattering like he told her—but the Cyclops was too quick for both of them.

SHANTI [DEAD] JEFFREY >CYCLOPS> NIC NIC [DEAD] SCARLET: 19 | >TYRIAN: 45 | XANTHIC: 36

Not good, Nic thought, trying desperately to stave off a spiral. Not good. Not good, not good, NOT. GOOD! The stakes for Team Scarlet had never been higher; they had the opportunity to make history on Planet Nereus, a world with perhaps the first signs of rudimentary alien life that humanity had ever encountered. And on a far more selfish level, they’d all be able to retire at age 18 off the money they stood to make from winning this Wargame match.

Planet Didumos had meant the difference between keeping their jobs or getting reassigned to hard labor. Nereus, on the other hand, was the difference between missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime or attaining fame and financial security for the rest of their collective years. Tyrian and Xanthic must both feel the same way. No wonder they’re fighting harder than anyone we’ve ever faced.

By the time he respawned, emerging from another holding module at the other end of the battlefield, it was too late to regroup with his squad and think of a Plan C.

SCARLET: 19 | >TYRIAN: 50 | XANTHIC: 37 GAME OVER TEAM TYRIAN: VICTORY!

RTIFIS announced neutrally. Nic saw the muted blue light of the Simnasium once more when his helmet detached.

“Well, now that we can all hear each other again,” Maqsud sighed, “I’ll tell you all what I was telling Perri. Nic, that was an absolutely brilliant plan, Perri, an execution equally flawless as my own, and I have never... ever felt that thoroughly trounced in a Wargame. I know this is only our third match, but that was gratuitously brutal.”

“It’s not going to get any easier,” Nic said dispassionately. Silence hung in the air as the others listened. “Think about what we have to gain here. Think about the other two squads who have both probably been doing this longer than we have. They have a way out. They have a shot at quitting money. If they win this, they get to travel the galaxy for leisure, go wherever they want—to Sol, to Earth, even, with that kind of money. They could retire on Earth.” Another weighty pause. “If they win, they’ll never have to feel bullet wounds again, the kind of injury that would kill a person in real life... and we’re made to feel it again and again. And again. They’ll never have to feel the burning shrapnel of an explosion blasting them to pieces again... They’re gonna fight like hell out there today. This is not just another Wargame match.”

“So, what are we supposed to do against that?” Perri asked. “We don’t just have one enemy giving it their all, now we have two. How do we fight that?”

“All five of us, we need to push ourselves to our absolute limits, limits we’ve never touched before...” Nic glared at the holographic scoreboard on the wall.

TEAM FREE-FOR-ALL SCARLET: 0 | >TYRIAN: 1 | XANTHIC: 0

“...and once we find those limits... we need to shatter them.”