new scenes: cry “LARP” and let slip the Dogs of war

Some setup first.

Recall that in the first book that when John and the Dogs were hiking across Farside, the Dogs were playing a MMORPG LARP. The heads up displays of their spacesuits were creating an augmented reality / virtual reality that turned most of what they were experiencing into an immersive game.

That’s relevant here, during the PK assault on the Aristillus colony.

*** 205a

== 2064: Relief column Charlie, level ???

The platoon of dismounted PK infantry hiked through the lunar tunnel, their rifles pivotting as they scanned the empty storefronts for threats. Behind them the light utility vehicles that held the rest of the relief column paced them.

In the back of the infantry column the short and slight Gene let the barrel of his rifle go for a second and tried to scratch the side of his torso through the thick space suit. “Damn it, why do we have to take point?”

Larry looked over at the small man and shrugged. “Someone’s got to; no reason it shouldn’t be us.”

Gene shook his head. “These space suits aren’t designed for walking. My ass itches, my side itches. This is bullshit.”

Larry grinned wryly. “Welcome to the infantry. Was it better at your last posting?”

“No. But at least we didn’t have to wear spacesuits.”

“Could be worse – at least we don’t need our visors down.”

Gene’s helmet beeped then the captain issued an order over the command circuit. “Men, smoke up ahead. Close your helmets.”

Gene pursed his lips and looked up at Larry. “Thanks. Thanks a lot, you asshole.”

Larry chuckled. “Sooner you embrace the shit, the sooner it stops bothering you.” Larry tapped the button on the side of his helmet and his visor snapped shut. Gene grimaced and did the same.

A second after his visor clicked shut the whir of small fans inside the suit picked up and the display on the inside of the visor blinked to life. They’d practiced with the heads up display a few times in Nevada but Gene had always found it useless. Air reserves? Navigation overlays? That stuff was going to be taken care of by the seargeants or the LTs – it was nothing he had to worry about.

The one feature that was useful was the communications. Gene twitched his chin three times to the left, then down twice, moving the cursor across the small navigation bar at the top of his screen, then made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Hey, Larry, you reading me?”

“Depends. Are you going to bitch about the mission some more?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Wait, Gene, can’t hear you. You’re breaking up.” Damn it, he could HEAR Larry chuckling as he said it.

*** 205b

== 2064: The Den, Aristillus, Lunar Nearside

Blue stormed into the Duncan’s room and Duncan looked up. “Blue, what’s going on?”

Blue didn’t trust himself to speak and just shook his head.

“Ah – you and Max growling at each other again?”

Blue looked away then back. “Something like that.” Duncan said nothing and Blue started pacing. After a moment he stopped. “What’s your secret Duncan?”

“Secret to what?”

“Secret to staying so calm and upbeat all the time. When things are overwhelming like this, you don’t let it get to you, you just play a video game or something.”

Duncan shrugged. “I’m just like that, I guess. But it’s sort of unfair that you think I’m always just playing games. Right now I’m not gaming – I’m reading an article on the Marianas Trench.”

Blue raised an eyebrow and smiled slightly. “What? No one’s online to play the LARP with ?”

“No, there’s tens of thousands of people online, but they’re pretty cliquey – none of them respond to my requests for a game.”

Blue narrowed his eyes. “Tens of thousands?”

“Uh huh.”

“For the Lord of the Rings lunar LARP thing?”

“Yeah. Why, what?”

“Let me see the admin screen.”

*** 205c

== 2064: Relief column Charlie, level ???

Gene trudged alongside Larry at the rear of the dismounted platoon. Ahead of him some of the other troops were still pivotting from left to right, scanning the empty storefronts and apartment entrances as they hiked along, but most had let their weapons drop to their sides.

“Larry, how long do you think this deployment will last?”

Larry turned, his gold mirrored faceplate opaque. “I expect that the battle will be over within a day or so. We haven’t lost a LUV in over half an hour, and I think -”

Gene lost track of what Larry was saying because the whole world went weird for a moment. Had he really seen that? For a second the tunnel had disappeared and been replaced with a vast red desert, with a broken cracked strip of asphalt where the tunnel roadbed was. What the fuck? Was he having a hallucination?

He stole a glance at Larry, but the bigger man had stopped speaking. Should he tell an officer what he’d seen? No way – that’d be a psych write-up for sure. And not a good one that’d give him an AAS rating. This’d be a bad one. Should he tell Larry? He glanced over at his friend again – and then Larry disappeared. What the fuck? He looked around – the tunnel was gone again and he was in a dark field of glowing mushrooms. He tightened his grip on his rifle. What the hell was going on? He felt his heart pounding in his chest.

The world flickered again and he was back in the tunnel…but the platoon ahead of him was gone, replaced with –

Holy shit.

Where the platoon was a moment ago there were two dozen monsters. MONSTERS! What the hell were these lunar freaks up to? He knew they’d been breeding weird mutant dogs, but no one had told him that they were genetically engineering monsters.

One of the muscled green horrors up ahead turned around, facing him. Gene’s blood ran cold. The – thing – had a huge protruding jaw, a few wisps of thin greasy hair matted to its mostly bald skull, and – oh God – tusks. It raised one hand, pointing at him – straight at him – and screamed. Next to it the other monsters raised weapons – crossbows? God-damned crossbows? – and pointed them at him.

Gene screamed back. His stomach felt like it was falling out of his body and he couldn’t see anything except the group of horrible utterly WRONG monsters ahead. His rifle was coming up, so slowly, then finally was in position. He slipped the selector from safe to three round burst and squeezed the trigger, again and again and again. “Larry! Larry! Help me!”

From beside him he could hear Larry firing too. Over the coms channel there was more panicked screaming. Gene fired again and again, until he pulled the trigger and nothing happened. Ahead of him half of the goblins or orcs or whatever the hell they were were down, but the other half were still using their crossbows. “Larry! I’m out of ammo!”

“Reload, dumb ass.”

“I can’t – I left my ammo pouch in the LUV to save weight.”

“Here, take one of mine -”

Gene turned to his right to face Larry – and almost dropped his rifle. Where Larry had been just a moment ago there was a monster – bigger than all the others. It hulked over him, standing over two meters tall. Saliva dripped from its mouth. Gene screamed and lifted his rifle. He jerked the trigger but nothing happened.

The monster screamed back as it lifted its crossbow and pointed it at him.