CHAPTER 17
Fire on Ice
It was two fifteen.
The train rode on the tracks straight through the ruined city, belching black smoke and shaking the ground.
Behind it was a Humvee. Its engine was also very loud, but nothing like the train’s.
Inside the car, Llenn excitedly exclaimed, “Pito! We got four of them!”
Clarence’s skill had played a part, but the bullet circle and incredible firing rate of the Minigun had done most of the work—taking out more enemies in one fell swoop than they had all game so far.
“I saw that! Well done!”
“Heh-heh-heh. So what’s the plan now? Should we just follow the train and go along with you guys?”
The locomotive was currently running at about forty-five miles per hour. There were no roads to the sides of the tracks, but the rails were on a flat embankment of gray gravel in keeping with the American-style scenery. It was about ten yards across, with no fences.
Shirley was driving over that surface at around fifty miles per hour. Whether this made for an easier time than taking the debris-ridden streets or she had simply gotten over her fears of handling such a large vehicle was unclear. Only about two hundred yards separated the locomotive and Humvee.
Llenn didn’t know how far Pitohui intended to run, but she figured they could follow the surging train and help cover it when it stopped.
However, Pitohui replied, “That’s probably not going to work.”
“Huh? Why not?”
“Have you forgotten the map? This track goes over the lake up ahead. The ground’s probably only as wide as the tracks there. I don’t know if the Humvee’s tire span will fit that. Can you really make it over? I’m not going to stop you!”
“Ugh, that’s right… Oh, but we can still drive on the lake! It’s frozen! I mean, Boss’s team already—”
“That’s right. But the highway cuts across there. The railway goes over the top, so we’re fine, but you guys…”
“Oh…”
In any case, it wasn’t going to be possible for the Humvee to accompany the train.
“So is our only option to switch rides?”
“Pretty much. That’s why I said we should work separately. Why don’t you just roll your way straight into Fire’s camp?”
“But we’re a team! Plus…”
Llenn couldn’t deny the appeal of attacking Fire with the heavy vehicle. She wouldn’t refute that the idea of planting a fat tire tread on his smug face had a certain charm.
“But he’s surrounded by his elite team, right? I don’t know if we can pull it off for sure. I’d rather follow your plan, Pito. You’re taking off on the train because you have an idea in mind, right?”
“All right, got it. Then think of how to catch up and get on board.”
“Okay. Stop the train.”
“Can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Have you not looked behind you?”
Behind? Llenn glanced at the rearview mirror on the right. There was a second Humvee in pursuit.
“Ack! They’re chasing after us!”
The enemy was about three hundred yards back, in hot pursuit. Unlike Llenn’s ride, this one was traveling to the left of the tracks.
However, no sooner did Llenn take stock of that than the hostile Humvee came over to the right side…and then back to the left. The maneuver caused the pursuers to fall behind a bit, but they sped up to close the distance again. It seemed to be an intentional slalom pattern.
“Very smart of them. They’ve been sticking behind us about a quarter of a mile away without getting too close. That puts them out of launcher range and lets them watch out for grand grenade traps. They’re probably watching us so they can report everything to Fire. I bet they’ve been doing that this whole time.”
“Urgh…”
Even worse than being persistent, they were good at their jobs.
“That’s why we have to hurry. If Fire’s group on the lake can cut us off to the bridge and plant plasma grenades on the supports, we’re done for. Game over.”
“Got it… You don’t have to stop for us! We’ll go and take care of those stalkers! Then we’ll switch over to the train!”
“Okay, good luck. You don’t have much time left.”
“Clarence! We got a stalker chasing us! I need your help again!”
Clarence was sitting in the turret at the center of the vehicle, looking very relaxed, but when Llenn called her, she stood at attention. “Huh? Yeah! Where?”
She looked behind them and spotted the enemy Humvee. She pulled her head back into the car and shouted over the roar of the engine and the wind, “But I can’t punch through it!”
“The tires, then! Aim as low as you can!”
“Oh yeah, maybe that’ll work!”
Clarence grabbed the Minigun controls and hit the rotation switch with her foot to turn left. And when she was close to perpendicular to the vehicle, the turret stopped.
“Huh?”
It wouldn’t move any farther.
“What’s wrong?” Llenn asked.
Clarence admitted, “Uh, I think this is the kind that can’t face backward.”
“What?!” Llenn spun around and looked at the turret stand. “Oh…I get it…”
A picture was worth a thousand words. The Minigun’s ammo was being fed into the weapon’s right side with a metal rail. The huge ammo box connected to that rail was sitting atop the rear right seat. So, no matter how flexible that metal rail was, it could only spin so far. About ninety degrees left or right was the most it could manage.
“So there’s no way for us to shoot backward…and they know that. No wonder they’re so bold about following us,” Llenn murmured.
Clarence added, “That makes sense. Otherwise, they wouldn’t allow us to see them in the open. Forget it, then.” She released the Minigun controls and sat down again.
“Let’s just do this, then!” Shirley barked abruptly, and she slammed on the brakes.
“Hurbf!” Llenn’s body collided against the passenger side of the dashboard.
“Aaah!” Clarence toppled into the space between the driver and passenger seats.
“Yaaaaah!” Shirley spun the wheel hard to the left, although they hadn’t totally slowed down yet.
“Aieeee!” Clarence got thrown against Llenn this time.
“Brhrgh!” Llenn got smushed.
The Humvee crossed over the rails to the other side and continued until it had made a 180-degree turn.
“Warn us before you do that, driver!” Clarence complained, resting on her back atop Llenn.
“Get—off—me!” Llenn insisted while trying to wriggle free.
Shirley ignored them and hit the brakes to make the Humvee stop.
“Dwah!” Clarence had been standing up, and the sudden halt tossed her off her feet and back onto Llenn.
“Mrgh!”
Shirley grabbed the R93 Tactical 2 sitting on her lap, got out of the driver’s seat, and climbed into the turret. There, she rested the R93 Tactical 2 on the vehicle’s armor plating and peered through the scope. Her target was the Humvee straight ahead, at a distance of 250 meters.
The enemy had panicked and stopped when they saw the sudden U-turn. It was plain they were hurrying to shift into reverse.
“I don’t think so,” said Shirley, pulling the trigger.
The explosive round flew over the rails and hit the other Humvee’s left front wheel, inside of which the projectile exploded.
The tires were tough and thick, but they weren’t meant to withstand a burst from inside. The rubber’s exterior split away and flew into the air, sputtering from the force, leaving only the rim.
Still, the Humvee squealed backward, its bare wheel digging into the gravel.
“Next!”
Shirley rapidly reloaded her rifle. While they were moving targets, there was no way she’d miss something as large as those tires within a range of 350 meters.
The right wheel ruptured just like the left, leaving only the rim. Without the tires to lift it up, the front of the Humvee noticeably dipped.
Yet, it still had enough power in the rear tires to drag it backward. It struggled like a wounded beast.
Shirley slid back into the driver’s seat. Clarence had finally gotten back to her feet, although Llenn was still pinned under her.
“There, I’ve stopped them. Now finish the job!”
“They blew out the tires! They’re coming after us!” cried the leader. He gave up on driving, understanding that fleeing was no longer an option.
Even the heavy-duty armor on the Humvee wasn’t going to last forever if the Minigun started blasting it from close range. The choice was clear.
“Everyone, off! Fan out and run!”
The last thing they wanted was to make themselves easy targets for one sweep from the Minigun, like the Wrong Lancers. The heavy doors of the Humvee opened, and three people jumped out.
“Leader?”
However, the driver’s door remained shut.
“Go! Just go! Hide among the ruins and run back to the lake as fast as you can! That’s an order!” the leader commanded. He took his L129A1 sniper rifle and stood in the turret.
The others did not turn back to look again. They ran pell-mell for safety, trying to reach the buildings twenty meters away.
“They’re running!”
“Shoot, shoot!” Shirley urged Clarence, who obliged with the Minigun.
The tracers followed the man who fled to the right side, but he was small and distant. With the rumbling from the car upsetting her aim, she was unable to hit him.
“Sorry; I let them get awa— Ack!”
Clarence’s report turned into a scream at the end.
“!” Llenn swung around and saw that Clarence had toppled from her standing position. There was a glowing red light on her left cheek.
“Ohhh!”
The bullet must have shot right through the tiny gap between the armor plating and the Minigun itself. Clarence’s hit points were dropping fast.
She was surprisingly tough, though, so it wasn’t an insta-kill. It was severe nonetheless. The pain and numbness were likely akin to being slapped across the face.
It would be pointless to ask if she was okay, so Llenn didn’t. Clarence’s voice sounded tearful.
“Aaah, it hurts… How could you shoot a woman in the face?! Is this because I didn’t show my boobs…?”
“What? Boobs?” Llenn asked, blinking.
“Forget about that!” Shirley snapped. “There’s a sniper in their turret! Just shoot the big one, Llenn! You don’t have to hit him!”
“Huh? Uh, okay!”
Llenn had never shot a Minigun before, but it was up to her now. She stood between Clarence’s legs as the other girl went to lie down in the center of the Humvee.
Then Llenn came to a realization.
“Um…my face can’t reach…”
With Llenn’s height, no matter how hard she stretched, she couldn’t see over the Minigun and armor plating.
“Daaaa! You tiny little freak!” Shirley snapped. She was always salty.
“Aw, come on, I’m not that small.”
“Why do you sound happy?!”
“It’s a long story. And I don’t think this is the right setting to get into it…”
“You’re already taking too long! We’re almost there!”
They were only a hundred meters from the target now. He was blasting away from the roof, putting more and more holes in the windshield.
Shirley raged, “Arrrgh, maybe I should just ram him!”
“No! It’s not that kind of game!” Llenn cried.
Suddenly, she was much taller. Clarence was lifting her up from below.
“Wheeee! Look how tall you are! Now shoot him, Llenn!”
“Thanks!”
She put her hands on the grips and pressed what she assumed was the trigger.
Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
At first, Llenn thought a fire had broken out in front of her. Waves of virtual heat from the barrels of the gun washed over her face.
Do they really need to simulate all of that? she thought.
Initially, Llenn’s aim was all over the place. But gradually, the red lights of the tracers and the stream of kicked-up dirt followed the bullet circle toward the Humvee.
There was a massive shower of sparks.
The enemy vehicle lit up yellow like a Catherine wheel. The red tracer rounds from the Minigun bounced off the target in all directions. The sound of deflected projectiles formed a chorus with the roar of the weapon. The force of the gunfire rocked the heavy vehicle and pushed it backward.
Through the sea of flames, Llenn watched the target get closer and closer. Eighty meters, seventy, sixty.
She didn’t know how long she needed to keep firing, so she just held down the trigger.
Under the fire hose of bullets, the enemy Humvee’s armor finally met its end. After dozens of rounds, the armor finally dented inward and began to let shots through.
“Hrgh!”
The projectiles tore into the vehicle’s interior and bit into the driver’s thighs. He ducked down inside the car, the bullets cutting more holes into the metal around him.
“I’m done in here!” he called to his teammates. “Don’t worry about winning; just find a way to take them out! That’s our mission! I’m counting on you! And by the way, our payment for this is—”
But he never got to finish that statement.
The damage reached the Humvee’s gas tank and, true to GGO’s nature, promptly ignited it. The car exploded into a massive fireball, killing the man stuck inside.
“V2HG is down to three,” informed a voice in Fire’s ear.
He was sitting atop a vast, wide-open lake, white as could be, with his legs splayed out, gazing emptily at the sky.
Five of the people around him were wearing the same sort of tracksuit he was. On the distant horizon to the west was a collection of twelve tiny dots, specks of darkness running at full speed toward the bridge.
“I see. This little tournament event is lasting longer than I had anticipated,” Fire admitted, still peering up at the gray above. “But I believe in you all. I’ll wait here and trust in your hard work.”
“Uh, Leader, you sure we don’t need to move yet…?”
Kenta from MMTM was seated on the eastern end of the airport runway, his back resting against a trike.
Next to the vehicle was David, the team leader, completely flat on his back. The STM-556 he always used rested at his side. His hands were folded behind his head, and his eyes were closed. It looked like he was taking a nap.
“We’re still fine. What time is it? How many minutes?” David inquired, not bothering to look at his own watch.
“Two eighteen. Still got two minutes,” answered Kenta, going by his watch and giving David the time until the monsters appeared.
“Next, we can move to the highway, I suppose. We’ll watch the two twenty scan there.”
“Leader.”
“Hmm?”
“I understand that you’re not abandoning the competition, but it’s kind of creepy to see you so indifferent about this.”
“It’s because there’s nothing we can do. So we’re taking a break until we head for the final confrontation. Never thought I’d be so relaxed in a Squad Jam.”
“Ah, okay. Wait, does that mean you already have an idea of where it’s going to be?” Kenta asked, turning to look at David.
“Yeah. A vague one,” replied David.
“Damn, Leader. Or ‘Damnlee’ for short. Where is it?”
“Not yet. I don’t want to look bad if I’m wrong.”
“Tsk.”
David cracked his eyelids, and the gray sky filled his vision.
“Don’t die before then, Pitohui,” he muttered. “Don’t die before I can kill you myself.”
The train raced onward.
The speedometer read 60, presumably meaning miles per hour. Given that they had the train on the highest setting, that was the fastest it could go.
For the people on the catwalk, that was plenty thrilling. Beyond the flimsy-looking railing, the ground and the ruined city swept by at a ferocious speed.
There was also a deck at the front end of the locomotive where a person could stand.
“Ha-ha-ha! I’m flying, Jack!” said Boss, who was living out one of her favorite movie scenes.
“Can we be done with this yet?” asked Rosa, who had been forced to play along.
M was in the driver’s seat, properly seated, with his left hand on the brake lever.
Pitohui was on the left side of the cab, keeping an eye on the surroundings with binoculars.
At the speed they were going, they could cover a mile a minute. Pitohui gauged that they were in Sector 9-3, going by shogi board format. There wasn’t much visibility with all the buildings around, but the frozen lake should be fast approaching on the train’s left. The tracks would rise onto a bridge over the body of water.
By now, Fire’s team had undoubtedly received a report that Pitohui’s group was escaping via locomotive. They had to be on their way to destroy the bridge—the only question was if they’d already gotten there or not.
“Get us there in time, okay?”
“Pito, my girl, that might not be possible, eh? If only we were all as speedy as little Llenn,” replied Fukaziroh, who’d heard Pitohui mutter under her breath. The catwalk was very cramped and crowded, so she was chilling in the engine room.
Fukaziroh did some quick calculations in her head. The train had been running for a little over two minutes. It was about a mile from the center of the lake to the bridge. It would take an ordinary character three minutes, if not more, to run that.
“They won’t catch up. We’ll get past. Llenn’s car is another matter.”
“Let’s hope so. But what if the enemy has some other sets of wheels?”
“Huh? According to Boss, they’re out of Humvees now.”
“Let me amend that. What if they have something to ride left in their back pocket…?”
“Pardon?” asked Fukaziroh, looking skeptical.
Pitohui did not answer. She opened the door in the cab’s center and called out to “Jack and Rose” on the front deck.
“Hey, you two! Romance time is over. Come back inside; we’re approaching the lake. Watch out for attacks from the left!”
“Okay, fine,” said Boss, who stopped cheering and squealing. “All members, keep an eye out! Watch that lake carefully! By the way…how’s Llenn doing?”
“Don’t leave me behind!” Llenn wailed.
The three-person group had succeeded at turning the enemy Humvee into scrap, but the train was far ahead of them.
No matter how hard Shirley flattened the pedal against the floor, it couldn’t go faster than seventy-five miles per hour. That was the maximum possible speed for a Humvee in GGO—or perhaps just in this Squad Jam.
They drove and drove, but they couldn’t seem to catch sight of the train.
“I wish someone would jump into our way. I wanna run ’em over!” Shirley exclaimed, rather horrifyingly, holding on to the wheel with just one hand. Llenn ignored her.
The only hope was to get to the locomotive as soon as humanly possible.
Please, if there’s anyone who can make this happen, make my wish come true.
The person who could make Llenn’s wish come true was on the lake.
Six men stood at the center of that frozen body of water. If they were caught on the scan, it would make clear that they were PORL—one of the allied teams, which had been waiting on the lake for the entire Squad Jam.
The group was dressed in gray camo fatigues. It was a useful pattern in a city, but it did a decent job of blending in on the ice, too.
This group did not wear masks and sunglasses. Each of their faces—randomly created by the character generator—looked very excited.
They were six hundred meters from the bridge.
It was quite visible from here. The narrow concrete bridge, dull and gray, had several legs thrust into the lake, while the bridge itself was a flat, horizontal line. It grew closer and closer as they approached.
PORL was moving very swiftly indeed. They crossed the frozen lake much quicker than Llenn would have, even at a full sprint.
Each member was sporting an item on his feet. They’d kept them hidden in their inventories when SHINC had been around.
One of the men on Fire’s team had found the tools in a boathouse on the lakeshore earlier: ice skates.
Five hundred meters from the bridge.
With powerful strides making the most of their Strength stats, PORL’s members moved at a speed that would be record-breaking in the real world. And there was no muscle fatigue in VR, so they could continually move at maximum velocity.
Four hundred meters.
Now the tiny image of a train moving out of the ruined city was coming into view.
“That’s enough! Let’s do it!” commanded the man who was presumably PORL’s leader, waving his left hand to bring up his item storage.
“Yeah!” the others responded. They stopped pushing forward, letting momentum continue to carry them. As they did, they drew their weapons from virtual space.
“Enemies on the left! Six on the ice!” called Fukaziroh, peering through binoculars from the cab.
Tall buildings no longer flanked the locomotive. The terrain was full of plants and the occasional one-story building. The track was rising steadily, leading to the narrow bridge that crossed the highway and lake. The structure was visible now, though still appearing no larger than a spiderweb.
“Tsk!” Pitohui spat.
“But how did they do it without vehicles?!” wondered Fukaziroh.
“Look at their feet.”
“Huh?” Fukaziroh zoomed in with the binoculars and looked down. “Ohhhh! They’re wearing ice skates! That’s not fair, man!”
“I knew those things were near the lake,” stated Pitohui, who seemed pleased that her guess had been right—and also upset that the situation was now worse because of it.
“You know, I really hate ice-skating. We had to do it so much in gym class. It gets you so tired out,” remarked Fukaziroh, displaying her Hokkaido roots. The northern island was the kind of place where it got so cold that you could toss water onto the ground at school and make your own skating rink. Miyu and Karen had only ever known the kind of skating where you played until you got tired.
In Hokkaido, you never had those romantic mishaps where the girl grabbed the guy on their date and went, “Eek, I’m scared! Oh! We’re so close now…”
“What now?” asked M, his hand resting on the train’s brake lever.
Pitohui pressed the binoculars she’d snatched from Fukaziroh to her eyes and answered, “Why aren’t they coming to the bridge? Do they not have a grand grenade…?”
If they didn’t have one of the extra-large plasma grenades, they couldn’t blow up the bridge. Or were they not going to make it in time?
Just then, as if to answer that question, the enemy pulled out their firearms.
When Pitohui saw the weapons take shape, she swore, stuck her head out of the cab, and screamed, “RPG incoming! Brace for impact!”
The approaching enemies were equipped with RPG-7s—Soviet-era rocket-propelled antitank armaments.
The RPG-7 was a very powerful firearm that AI enemies had only used for the first time in the recent playtest. Apparently, it was in the game for good now. As far as ranged weapons went, it had to be top tier in GGO when it came to maximum damage output.
The tip of the launcher’s sharp, cone-shaped missile was full of contact explosives. Rocket fuel was packed into the rear for propulsion, so once lit, the projectile could reach a speed of 350 meters per second, just under the speed of sound.
The men turned to one side to stop their skates. They put down the long tubes that had just appeared over their right shoulders, quickly loaded the grenades, and steadied the weapons.
Smoke jetted behind one of them, and his grenade shot forward. It blasted out like a cannonball, then ignited its rocket and accelerated faster. It was aimed right at the train.
About two and a half seconds later, the first rocket passed a few meters in front of the speeding train.
“It’s too late! Just blaze through it!” Pitohui told M.
It was even harder to stop a train than a car. If M started applying the brakes now, the train wouldn’t actually come to a complete halt until they were on the bridge over the lake.
At that point, they’d be a sitting target with no place to escape.
The next moment, the second rocket came roaring toward the locomotive’s left side as it approached the start of the bridge. It struck the engine room in the train’s rear, causing a shudder to run through the entire structure.
“Whoa!” “Hyaaa!” “Eeg!” “Dwaah!”
SHINC and T-S screamed, falling over and on top of each other on the narrow catwalk. It was a miracle that none of them fell off.
Perhaps the attack had damaged the engine, because the train’s speed noticeably dipped.
A third rocket came right on the second’s heels and blasted the coupler at the front of the cab. It tore loose one of the thick metal arms.
The fourth hit the roof over the control car, but luckily only grazed it without exploding and traveled onward into the sky before vanishing.
“Get outside, Fuka. M, keep us moving even if it kills you!”
“Got it,” answered M with a firm nod.
Fukaziroh and Pitohui rushed out of the control car onto the catwalk on the train’s right side. Thankfully, it was still safe there. The massive engine was now between them and the enemy, and even a rocket’s explosion couldn’t make it through all that metal.
The moment the two made it outside, the fifth rocket struck the left side of the train cab.
The explosive was designed to blast through tank armor; the control car’s wall might as well have been paper by comparison. A screeching roar of splintering iron echoed through the locomotive’s interior. Windows blew out from the inside, and half of the roof was torn upward.
“Oof…”
However, M was okay because he’d kept his head low on the right side of the cab. If the rocket had struck the other side of the car, he would have died instantly.
The sound and shock of the explosion were considerable, however, and they thrashed his head. M’s vision went awry, and he lost his sense of balance. Even still, he kept the master controller pushed up to ensure the blast didn’t jar it loose.
The engine was still moving, but the train was slowing every second.
Next came the sixth rocket. It was met with a gust from the northeast. RPGs had fins that caused them to drift upward on the wind, something that made them distinct from bullets.
The timely breeze caused the rocket-propelled grenade to shift toward the rear of the train instead.
“Hyaaa!” shrieked Tanya from the back of the locomotive. It passed behind her, close enough that she could have reached out and touched it on the way. The rocket continued on and collided with the ruins of a building to the right of the tracks. The structure quickly began to burn.
Down on the lake, each member of PORL had shot one rocket.
“Ooh, that’s fun!”
They materialized new rockets and loaded them into the RPG-7 launchers. They weren’t single-use antitank weapons, so as long as you had more ammunition, you could keep using them.
They had stopped skating to shoot, so the squad was still four hundred meters from their quarry. When it came to accuracy with an RPG-7, closer was better. However, when one considered the enemy’s grenade launcher, this was the best distance for PORL to be at.
For one thing, their target was a giant mass of metal seventy-two feet long. It was also approaching a stop right as it reached the bridge. Once still, it was a sitting duck.
The six men formed a horizontal line so that their rockets’ ignition gas didn’t knock anyone over. As each one was ready to fire again, he bent his knees to crouch.
They aimed their scopes, aligned their bullet circles over the train—and fired the second wave.
“Fuka! What happened?! Fuka!” Llenn repeated, but her friend was apparently too busy to reply.
“I can see it!” called Clarence, who was up in the turret with her binoculars. She described the action to the other two. “Uh-oh, they’re getting blasted! Something just flew up from the left—it’s a rocket! They’re bombarding the train while it’s crossing the bridge!”
“Wha…?” Llenn was stunned.
“Oh wow! They hit it again! I’m amazed that the engine’s still going. There’s smoke coming out of the left side! It looks like a steam engine now!”
You don’t have to sound so entertained, Llenn grumbled to herself.
Even Llenn could see that the locomotive was slowing down. Through the windshield, she could see the shape ahead was getting larger, a plume of black smoke rising from it. Beneath the engine’s roar and the whistling of the wind, she could hear the echoing of explosions.
“Wh-where’s the attack coming from?”
“To the left… Can’t see where, but probably from the lake!”
“Shirley! Take us down to the lakeside!”
“Why? Pitohui’s right ahead of us!”
“That’s not going to matter if she dies ten seconds from now! Besides, don’t you want to run somebody over?”
“Y’know, you make a good argument.” Shirley grinned fiercely and yanked the Humvee to the left.
At the edge of the city was a road that ran along the lakeside. The Humvee roared down it, then veered off toward the bank. Once they were down onto the mixture of gravel and sand, their visibility improved considerably.
The frozen lake was like a white desert: vast, colorless, and flat. The shore was about a hundred feet across. They stopped the Humvee there.
As Shirley stomped on the brakes, she asked hesitantly, “Are you sure we can drive this out there?”
Llenn was not aware that Shirley lived in Hokkaido. She had plenty of experience with frozen lakes, but that also meant she knew how dangerous they could be.
Using snowshoes or skates was one thing. Driving a heavy vehicle on frozen water was another. Depending on the location, you might be able to do that in Hokkaido, but only if you were sure how thick the ice was.
“It’s fine! Boss said so! They drove on one of these out to the middle of the ice with that alliance!”
“But not from this spot, right? What if it’s thinner here and we break through? You realize we’ll die, right?” Shirley asked. Her concerns made sense, but now was not the time to be timid.
There were trails of smoke rising from the RPG-7s a few hundred meters away out on the lake. It was too far to see the people, but the backblasts of the rockets were quite clear.
There was no way to win the Squad Jam without beating those guys.
Thus Llenn decided that she needed to convince their driver, Shirley, in the most persuasive manner possible.
She pointed the P90 at the other girl, put her finger on the trigger to produce a bullet line, and said, “Then get off! I’ll drive it from here!”
It was a hijack.
“Ha,” Shirley chuckled. Then she stomped on the gas pedal.
“Dwaa!”
Llenn toppled over and lost her aim. Shirley took the Humvee forward down the slope and onto the ice, which held up firmly under the heavy wheels.
“I like your spirit! Just for today, I’m going along with your crazy schemes!”
“Thanks, Shirley! That’s being a true teammate!”
“We’ll see about that!”
“Clarence! Light ’em up when we get close enough!”
“You bet! Wait, I don’t know how much ammo we have left.”
“It’s fine! Just go ahead! Don’t hold back! This is your day, Clarence!”
“Okay, then!” said Clarence, taking the handles of the Minigun with a smile, just as a rocket hit it.
The jet surge of the explosion went through the armor plating, ripped the Minigun out of the turret space, and took with it Clarence’s left arm, which flew well over ten meters away.
“Dgyaaaa!” Clarence screamed, falling back into the Humvee once again. Llenn saw the Minigun clatter impotently onto the ice and that Clarence’s body was now missing a limb.
“Aaaah…”
Clarence had just used a med kit, so her hit points were recovering, but the rocket had nearly brought her down to zero.
A second RPG passed to the right of the vehicle. It missed by two meters.
“Ah!”
Still, the proximity caused Shirley to jam the wheel left, veering away from their enemy.
If she hadn’t done that, the third rocket would have hit the Humvee. It sped past, running perpendicular to the vehicle’s tail end.
The Humvee raced to the east. Llenn could see a big, fat, red bullet line coming for them through the bulletproof glass.
Oh, so that’s what a line looks like for a rocket, she marveled as the fourth RPG shot toward them from the right.
“Help, God of Gun Gale,” she prayed for the second time that day.
Thanks to Shirley’s violent steering, they passed to the side of the line and avoided the incoming projectile.
It flew just centimeters from the driver’s seat.
As the Humvee raced away from the launchers at full speed, there was no fifth projectile.
“Ugh, this sucks.” Clarence had only a tiny sliver of health left. “Give me back my Minigun…”
It wasn’t yours in the first place, Llenn thought. Turning to Shirley, she asked, “S-so…what now?”
“What now? Nothing! We can’t get any closer! They’ll destroy my car!”
It wasn’t yours in the first place, Llenn thought again. It seemed like they were out of options.
However, Shirley hadn’t given up. “I’ll put some distance between us, like seven hundred yards, then stop and snipe them. They make an easy target!”
“Ooh! Nice! That sounds good!”
Then a bullet flew into the Humvee.
Or to be more accurate, photons.
“Yeep!”
An orange light passed through the bulletproof glass right before Llenn’s eyes and burst in her face.
“Ugh!” Green light did the same right against Shirley’s head.
“They’re shooting us with optical guns!” Llenn yelled. There was no mistaking that effect.
Llenn hadn’t realized that optical guns could pierce the reinforced glass. That would be one of the advantages of optical guns in GGO, then. It made sense, kind of—light could pass through translucent surfaces.
If it weren’t for the optical defense fields that every player wore, Llenn and Shirley would probably be dead. The luminous beams were coming at them head-on. It was like they were getting a very flashy light shower.
There could be only one source of all those colored shafts.
“It’s Team RGB! They snuck up on us!”
RGB had been one minute behind the others because they were on foot, not skates.
“Dammit! We’re trapped! No sniping, then! Gotta go!” exclaimed Shirley, who braked hard. It was probably the right choice. There was no time to expose herself and snipe. The RPG-7s were behind them, and optical guns that shot through the windshield were ahead.
Escape was the only option.
However, that would mean they wouldn’t be inflicting any damage on the enemy. Pitohui’s group would continue to be sitting ducks for those RPG-7s.
“But—!” Llenn protested.
“But what? You have a better plan?”
“……No.”
“If you want to die, I can let you off here.”
“……”
Clarence stepped in to fill Llenn’s silence.
“That’s a good idea.”
The train was going slower and slower.
The speedometer was busted, so M couldn’t know for sure, but it felt like it was going under twenty miles per hour now.
The attacks stopped for a little while but resumed less than a minute later.
Yet another RPG-7 hit the train as it continued on its way over the bridge—there was nowhere else to go.
“Aaaaah!”
The railing could no longer withstand the weight, and the member of T-S who wore the number 005 fell from the locomotive. The concrete bridge was narrow and slight, with only the tracks atop it and no handrails.
“Nooooo!” he screamed, and he plunged a few dozen feet to the ice, landing on his head.
No armor was going to save him from that impact. He died instantly, and a tag appeared over his body.
“……”
Ervin, the rest of his teammates, and the others could only watch him go.
There were eleven people on the train—three from LPFM, four from SHINC, and four from T-S—and they were like passengers on a sinking ship.
It was 2:20.
The scan commenced, but none of the people on the outside of the train could watch it. If they didn’t hold on for dear life with both hands, they would be the next to plummet.
The locomotive was getting slower with every second, now down to twelve miles per hour. At that speed, you could jump off without dying, but on top of a bridge like this, your fate was almost certain to be the same as poor 005’s.
“Heaven, why hast thou forsaken us?” Fukaziroh lamented. She’d made the most of her tiny size by sitting on the catwalk and dangling her legs, taking in the stunning view of the frozen lake below.
“We won’t give up! Once we stop, we’ll fan out on the bridge and shoot back!” Boss roared, speaking for SHINC.
Of course, they all knew that they’d just be targets for the RPG-7s and other firearms. They didn’t stand a chance.
“I guess this is it… They did really well,” said one of the spectators in the bar. The crowd was rapt with attention, determined to see the train escape through to the end.
Until then, however, they were immensely enjoying the rocket attacks, treating the explosions like a fireworks show for their viewing amusement.
“Llenn’s not on that, right?”
“I saw her on the Humvee earlier.”
“They got the Minigun blown off, and now they’re on the run. There’s no way to win when that many players surround you.”
The results of the Satellite Scan came up on the subscreens.
ZEMAL was among the craters, and MMTM sat at the airport. Nothing new there…
However, LPFM’s leader, Llenn, was currently in a northeast escape over the lake. SHINC and T-S were on the bridge. V2HG was doing its best to chase on foot but was still stuck in the city.
PORL was to the east of the bridge, firing RPG-7s nonstop. Less than a mile east of them was RGB, who had run up on their own.
Lastly, smack in the middle of the lake, where they had been for so long, were WEEI and SATOH. One of them had to be the leader of this alliance.
Thoughts abounded during the Satellite Scan.
In the bar…
“Even the toughest team can lose when they’re cornered. I feel like this Squad Jam was meant to teach us that lesson.”
“Don’t try to turn this into a moral exercise! This isn’t some after-school special!”
On the frozen lake…
“Give them all you’ve got! Don’t hold back; it’s all returning in another ten minutes!”
PORL spared none of their RPGs, knowing they could abuse the unique rules of SJ4.
“We won this fight pretty easily.”
“Yeah. We’re the very model of artillery.”
“I wasn’t sure if we should do this team-up thing, but it always feels good to be on the winning side.”
“Agreed. Once we’re done with these guys, let’s keep up the momentum and slaughter Fire’s team next.”
Right between PORL and RGB, where the Humvee had first made its escape, a single woman now lay flat on the ice.
She was covered in a white poncho, blending in with the frozen water. The one-armed woman waved her hand to tinker with her inventory.
Motes of light gathered and took form right beside her, merging into a large green backpack.
“Time to kick some ass!” Clarence said with a smile, and she pulled the string extending from the backpack.
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