Mason stared at the screen that had gone blank after Logan’s feed was cut. He didn’t know what to think, since he didn’t see much of the fight, but the parts he had seen made him almost rethink his entire plan. How could he compete with someone who could teleport? Mason slowly put his head into his hands and let out a growling sigh. Hearing steps behind him, he didn’t bother looking up, knowing who it was before they spoke.

“So he’s stronger now, so what?” Jackson asked. “Just makes things more fun when we get there and destroy him. Killing a level one newbie isn’t any fun, but this guy looks like he’ll give us a good fight.” Mason could hear the cocky smile on his face, like he wasn’t worried. One of Jackson’s lackeys was in the room with them, and spoke up.

“Boss, should we strike from the sky and try to level the city with our ships?” The shaking in his voice was readily apparent to the other two, knowing that for the most part, Jackson’s crew didn’t fight on the ground typically. They were well known to be fighter pilots in their ships, except for their new player who had just recently gotten their class.

“Nah, we’ll change classes and charge in guns and grenades blazing. The damage bonus from five soldier classes will make killing things a breeze, even if they’re the freak ants that infest this planet.” Jackson scoffed. “Besides, if we don’t go into the building to take him down, I’m pretty sure that the system won’t recognize it as being captured again, so we’ll need to have someone on the ground, and it’ll need to be a team to be able to survive the bugs with the way they’re swarming.”

Jackson’s crew might be pilots more often than not, but the system allowed players in the Far Reaches of Space to change their class once a day, allowing everyone the chance to experience the other roles the game had to offer without having to make new characters. If they unlocked an advanced class, however, it would replace the basic one, and they wouldn’t be able to go backwards to change their progression path. Jackson was a Fighter Pilot, instead of a basic Pilot, which gave him bonuses to flying single occupancy vehicles instead of larger freighters, shuttles, or destroyers.

“Change up into your Soldier classes, boys! We’re heading out once our last man logs on, and then we’re going in guns blazing!” Jackson yelled to his main crew, thrusting a fist into the air. The others cheered while Mason sat with his had in his hands still. What had he gotten himself into, he wondered, and not for the first time. Maybe he was destined to make bad choices to make up for something he did earlier in his life, because since Logan appeared, nothing went the way he had anticipated.

—

A few of the rebels that were outfitted in the devourer armor set had joined Logan in the assembly room, hanging out in their parties around the room while he sat on the edge of the stage. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits, despite the pressure that was put on their shoulders, and they were joking and laughing with each other while they waited for the other players to come to assault them.

It had happened a few times already, but they were small groups of players who were just trying to make a name for themselves, which wasn’t the smartest idea when you were fighting a force like Logan’s. About a dozen players were in the room, not including Logan, and the spawning pools he had created were creating more and more of his new warriors, meaning that anyone who wanted to stop him had to fight through a small army of enemies to even try.

Logan was leaning back from his spot on the edge of the stage, holding himself with his arms behind him, kicking his legs. His pistol was resting near his left hand and the mandible blade he used was next to his right, easily reachable if an enemy were to burst through the doors. The new queen crouched behind him on the stage, quietly awaiting orders. He didn’t have any new ones to give, though, so the two of them sat in the room without speaking, just observing the others in the room having a good time taking part in a Server Event.

The entire game had been online for a few years by the time that Logan had joined, but there were only a few Server Events that had happened, since they were so widespread in their effects. Most of them were planned events that the developers put in, like major World Bosses that would take what was basically an entire army to destroy. Other times were special activities that would reward participants with event unique cosmetics or accessories. Logan knew that a player prompting a Server Warning was out of the ordinary, but he wasn’t fully aware of how important it was.

Logan’s thoughts were interrupted by the door bursting open and three people opening fire from the other side, attempting to cover the entire room in gunfire. Luckily for Logan, they didn’t know to aim a little lower, or they would have hit him. They also didn’t hit too many of the other players, as the rest of his rebels turned and concentrated their attacks on the doorway, and after a few seconds there were only corpses on the ground in the hall.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Workers scurried out of the back room where the spawning pools were and dragged the bodies with him, taking their biomass and creating more warriors to help in the fight. A few of the other players patted the workers on the head as they walked back, having taken a liking to the creatures once they weren’t trying to kill everyone.

Logan breathed a heavy sigh. Only a couple more days to wait. His allies would log off and be replaced by others, keeping their numbers roughly the same. Hours would tick by, they would be attacked every now and again, workers would take the corpses into the back and new warriors would walk back out to the front. News feeds on the screens in the room showed the outside of the building, where large fights had broken out between the main rebels and the militia, with groups of players who weren’t part of either joining, sometimes for one side or the other, or just as a free for all.

Four more days and they could break the stranglehold that the militia had imposed on everyone. The hours never felt so slow.

—

Mason, Jackson, and the rest of their group were holed up in an alley, gunfire blazing out from the six weapons down either side. Dozens of corpses littered the entrances, devourers that had found them but were cut down from the five assault rifles and the minigun that Mason brought to bear. The skittering sound almost drowned out the majority of the sound the group was making, the number of devourers that were coming after them threatening to overwhelm them, but Mason’s minigun was whirring almost loud enough to be heard when they weren’t firing.

It took another twenty minutes, and multiple magazine changes before the devourers thinned out enough for the group to move along. They sprinted down back roads, trying to get to the headquarters before the devourer swarm succeeded in overwhelming them. They ducked into a building to avoid a group of players that were coming down another road, hoping they weren’t spotted. The office building had other entrances, so they opted to leave from a different one, still trying to avoid the bugs and people.

They would eventually come to rest in a building overlooking the plaza that led into the headquarters where Logan was, heavy panting throughout the room the only sound that could be heard. Jackson wanted to get an overview of the situation from the ground instead of using the angles the news was showing, but he wasn’t very happy with what he was seeing.

The headquarters building was completely swarming with the bugs that had always infested this planet. Even more terrifying was that the larger ones were carrying weapons and were using them to deadly effect. The smaller devourers would dart between the larger ones, gathering corpses to take back inside, and there were plenty to go around. Many of the main roads had small blockades built up to allow for player ships to deposit them into the fray, the small chance to earn glory welcome among the desperate masses that had been kept in place by the Free States.

The amount of players that had been killed in this event was starting to become ridiculous, even to Jackson’s sensibilities. He spotted the Free States main force, slowly making its way through the main thoroughfare of the city, trying to brute force their way to the headquarters with sheer numbers. They didn’t have enough to make it all the way there, even with the respawn timer being set lower for the special event.

Footsteps approached from behind on Jackson’s left, and Mason leaned his head against the glass window in front of them. The older man looked defeated, and his mood had only been getting lower and more depressing as they got closer to the headquarters building. It seemed like he was regretting his choices recently, but Jackson didn’t care enough about him to ask, or even pretend to be interested. His mission was to get in and stop the capture of the planet from the militia, and he only had two more days to do it.

His group had to drop in somewhere outside the city, and because they weren’t assigned to the main force, they had to try to find another way in. With the other players roaming around, they didn’t want to get caught up in petty fights, since their player tags clearly showed what group they were a part of, and the general feeling toward the militia was not a good one. Getting shot in the back didn’t seem like a good idea, and trying to keep a low profile was the way they chose to accomplish that.

It sucked to not have some kind of healer or tank to absorb damage, but a party full of soldier classes meant they were all giving each other small boosts to the amount of damage they each did, which was how they were able to cleave so deep into the swarm in a short time. Short being relative, it still took them hours to get into the city as far as they had, and the main force had only moved about ten blocks from the edge of the city in all that time, and they still had at least three dozen left to fight through.

Jackson turned to the rest of the group, almost ignoring Mason as he continued to lean on the glass.

“Get some rest, log out and get some food, a shower, a piss break. Meet back in a real world hour, and we’ll see if we can’t break this infestation!” He punctuated his sentence with a fist pump, and his group let out a light cheer, still tired from running and gunning for hours. Each pulled up their menus and logged out, disappearing into digital noise.

“Mason, you’re going to want to get your head on straight.” Jackson said in the nearly empty room, not turning to look at the older man. Mason only grunts in response, sitting down against the wall heavily. He doesn’t log out, but Jackson can hear gentle snoring come from his helmet. That will be a problem for later, but for now, Jackson needs the firepower that the gunner class can bring to bear.

A plan starts to form as Jackson looks out at the plaza. Three days to win, it shouldn’t be too hard.