Our enemies had brought a respawn point with them. We were in trouble.

"The dead ones aren't going to be out of the fight for as long as we hoped," I shouted over the noise of combat.

"Yeah, but it means they won't take as long to kill our way through as we thought either," Grandpa pointed out as one of our turrets dropped another orc.

"Time for something big," I said. The problem of the orcs in the woods was bothering me a lot. I wanted a quick breather so that I could think of a plan. "Smith! Lara! Grenades on the orcs now!"

They obeyed, Smith throwing smoke grenades that put out an acrid cloud that made eyes water and throats burn, while Lara threw her orange grenades merrily. I shot one of my boom rounds at the lowest health orc.

There was a massive explosion. Flames shot up all around the orcs. A cloud of smoke drifted across our outpost. I coughed and waved. "Who can see what's going on?"

"I've got eyes, sir," Jones reported. "Looks like three down. Three more hurting pretty bad. The two fresh ones are pretty high health, though." Jones had a night vision ability that let him see through small inconveniences like smoke bombs.

"All right, go hard," I said. "Let's push 'em all back for a minute so we can strategize." I leapt over the wall into the middle ring, then swarmed up the nearest ladder. I ran around the parapet until I was coughing my way through the smoke cloud.

It was rapidly clearing. As soon as I could see anything, I fired a Barrage, reloaded, and fired again. Another of the orcs fell. I reported it in.

"That's six!" Sage exclaimed. "Thirty-nine more to go. We can do this!"

I was starting to feel pretty good. We'd killed them six times, and they hadn't gotten us once.

Grandpa said, "Incoming!" and Shadow Stepped in behind the lowest health orc. He scalped it hard, taking it down to ten health left, then Shadow Stepped behind one of the returned-from-death orcs, the one with the halberd, and hit it with a Counting Coup.

I fired again into the orc grandpa had just scalped, and then reloaded as the orc dropped to the ground. "Seven!"

Sage appeared on the parapet beside me. "You're supposed to be on the other wall," I said.

"It's too far away for me to use this." Sage had her t-shirt cannon out. In the downtime, right before phase two started, she had acquired some paint and glitter and made it bright, sparkly pink. It was kind of terrifying, if I'm being honest. She fired at the remaining orcs. Big cotton bands of fabric exploded in the air and then wrapped tightly around two of the orcs, binding their arms against their chests.

Grandpa Shadow Stepped behind one and scalped it. "That's more like it," he said. "I don't like sitting behind the walls. I like to get my hands dirty." I wondered, not for the first time, just what exactly he had done in Vietnam.

Annie had followed Sage to stand beside me. Now, all of a sudden, she was down in the melee near Grandpa. I started to yell and then saw she was standing next to me, too. It was her "Sawn In Two" ability, which let her create a doppelganger of herself who could launch attacks and hurt her enemies. She had only had 30 points of health, but when the doppleganger died, she was just fine. She was clobbering the orcs with a baseball bat.

Team Mongoose focused fire. A few seconds later, the last of the orcs died and his corpse despawned.

"Everyone back up to the inner ring," I said. "We need a quick chance to regroup. Who's keeping count? How many was that?"

"Twelve," Sage said promptly. "We killed all of them once and two of them twice."

Twelve. Not quite a third of the way there, but we had yet to take a loss. I breathed a quick sigh of relief as we retreated back to our command post. Everyone had a quick drink of water. I kept an eye on the minimap. All of them were back in the trees now, clumped together. I knew they had something up their sleeves.

Team Mongoose was congratulating each other. "Don't get too cocky," I warned. "I think they were feeling out our defenses here. They're up to something. Jones, can you show everyone what you showed me?" Jones shared the image from his drone. "Anyone got any ideas?" I asked.

"It looks like some sort of siege weapon to me," Mitch said, scratching his head. He replaced his big plaid trucker's cap and added thoughtfully, "I got a few ideas there."

"Me too," I said. "I'd like to blow it up before they have a chance to do whatever it is they're planning to do. If it is some sort of outpost destroying device, anyone have any bright ideas how to deal with it?"

I checked my messages from Veda. She had replied during our fight, saying that her research on the Firebrand Corporation made her suspect they were loosely aligned with a galactic conglomerate who had taken a couple of alpha nodes about 50 miles away from our island. She thought they might be trying to take our node in order to put pressure on the two factions with alpha nodes near us.

That wasn't good news. If they wanted to take our node rather than just wanting to scare us into paying a ransom, then we might be in trouble. I asked her about the portable respawn point and the siege engine. She replied back immediately, Portable respawn items exist, but they're incredibly expensive. Not something I would expect Firebrand to have. Maybe they raided somebody else's stash like you did.

That was possible, though from the way Veda had carried on, I thought it was unlikely. Her message continued. Or maybe they have big money backers. The other thing they're building is probably a Wall Blaster 9000. It's specifically designed to knock down outpost walls so that an enemy can walk through them instead of having to go around and be subjected to all of the turrets firing. The good news is they have to be right up against a wall in order to punch through. They are incredibly slow to move and they've got a limited number of shots in them.

Yeah, but we only have three walls. Two if we don't close the outer gate, I pointed out. Even putting a hole in one of our walls would cut our defenses down massively.

They're vulnerable when they're set up to knock a hole in your wall. They're almost indestructible when they're being transported, Veda warned. Incredibly thick, heavy armor. So, turtles, I said grimly. Got it. Thanks for the information.

I relayed what Veda had told me to the team and asked for opinions. "If it's machinery, I might be able to help,” Lakshmi said. "My [Crystal Vibrations] are particularly effective against machinery." Lakshmi was a [New Age Healer]. She had abilities like [Smudge], which was a healing cloud, and [Dreamcatcher], which could put an enemy into a forced sleep. I hadn't looked too closely at what Crystal Vibrations did, but I pulled it up now and checked.

It was some long, wordy, new age description talking about the forces between forces and the pulls of dharma and chakra. But when it got down to the bottom, my eyes widened. An idea was starting to form.

The problem was, if the orcs got their siege engine up to the wall, it was going to be hard to stop before it put a hole in our defenses. On the other hand, while it was in motion, it might be almost impossible to damage. I sent Grandpa a quick note. I think we need to take a risk. It'll cost us a few lives, but them punching through our walls is worse.

Name your team, Grandpa replied. This is your show.

I looked at the wording of Lakshmi's Crystal Vibrations ability one more time, the part down at the bottom that said, "Disables non-organic, non-sentient constructs for five minutes."

My brain raced furiously. The plan clicked together in my brain, but we couldn't afford to let the Firebrand orcs regain their momentum. "Annie," I said, "your hallucination ability, the Ventriloquist Dummies skill, how long can you keep it up?"

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"Uh, probably about five minutes," she said. "I've never tried it in combat, though."

"This is your chance." I checked the party, making a mental roster. "Grandpa, I need you, Team Mongoose, Lakshmi, Lara, and Mitch." I saw Sage's expression, hesitated, then said, "Sage, is Three-Barrel Race long enough range that you can have one barrel inside our defensive lines and the other two at the orc camp or the woods nearby?"

Her eyes sparkled. "Yes."

"All right, I want you to set the one here before we get out there, then put down your other points as soon as we get close enough. Lara, your main job is going to be to get us out of there if things go really badly. Keep Minivan ready to go, otherwise do damage."

I gave them the rundown of the plan. Lara started nodding as I went. Jones and Brown rubbed their hands together and grinned. Lakshmi looked a little doubtful. "But why— ?"

I explained my reasoning. She shrugged. "You're the boss, Shad."

There was no sign of movement yet. Jones' drone swept in for another look. He flew it in low and one of the orc wizards noticed it. The orc pointed a finger and a jet of fire flowed out and baked the drone. The last image Jones shared was of a bunch of grinning orcs as the drone spiraled to earth.

"Let's go," I said as we vaulted over the rear wall, the opposite side of our outpost from where the orcs were hiding. Then Jones cast his camouflage ability on us all. I urged everyone to still walk quietly and not speak unless necessary.

We made for the edge of the woods, then worked our way around until we were nearing the orc camp. I glanced back at our outpost. Eight human forms stood on the walls looking outward, clutching rough wooden rifles. Annie's Ventriloquist Dummy spell wasn't much good up close, but from a distance I hoped it would fool the orcs.

We got within 20 feet of their camp, crouching behind brush. On my signal, I typed in chat. I held up a hand. Three, two, one.

I dropped my hand and put my head down, sprinting for the camp. As I came crashing through the brush, the orcs looked up. I cast Call ‘em Out and then engaged Fastest Gun in the West.

I smashed through under brush and crashed my way through the trees, but fortunately the jungle here wasn't that thick. A couple of palm branches smacked me in the face as I dashed forward. The orcs yelled as they chased me.

Behind me, I heard the sound of machine gun fire as Team Mongoose pursued the fleeing orcs into the brush. I turned and started shooting.

Grandpa teleported in. He Shadow Stepped behind the orcs, Scalped, and threw shuriken.

Our purpose right now was to create madness and distraction, and we were doing that well. Sage cast Mucking Out the Stalls, miring the orcs yet again. From the way they shouted, I didn’t think they were a fan.

It's done, Lakshmi said in chat.

Take them down now, hard and fast as you can, I replied. I shot a Barrage through the heart of the closest orc, one of the halberd users. He responded by swinging the axe head of his long weapon at me. I darted back. It caught my coat and slashed.

I Reloaded and shot him again in the face this time. "You have any idea how much it costs me to have that repaired?" I demanded. Some of the orcs had turned back to deal with Team Mongoose, but the soldiers had gotten their machine gun nest set up and were busily hosing down orcs. It was an expensive formation, requiring multiple abilities with long cooldowns to coordinate together in order to work, but Team Mongoose was good with it.

They spat bullets at the orcs in a loud long rat-tat-tat. A couple whizzed past me harmlessly. Tall Jones, the Ring Knocker, had a skill that made his team's shots immaterial to his allies. It was a godsend in situations like this.

Meanwhile, Mitch was charging around the outskirts of the fight, attaching spigots and wire to various trees. When he'd made a complete circle, he yelled, "Get clear!"

I dove for the underbrush. Grandpa dodged away. A minute later, a ring of explosions went off, toppling palm trees inward as he used his [Trunk-Toward-Enemy] ability and sent the trees toppling down on the orcs' heads. One by one, their health bars hit zero and the orcs despawned.

There was one left. I went after him. Grandpa was there first. He hit a Scalp blow, but the orc turned on him and grabbed hold of Grandpa's neck. He yanked Grandpa's head down toward his and bit the side of his neck hard.

Blood spurted from Grandpa's neck. His eyes went wide as his health drained away to nothing. A moment later, Grandpa's body dropped to the forest floor.

I screamed in anger as I emptied my cylinder into the orc. The orc's body fell toward Grandpa's, but Grandpa despawned before the orc hit the dirt.

Is that all of them? I asked, trying to get myself under control. "Confirmed!" Sage yelled. "Lakshmi and I have been counting." Grandpa, are you alright? she asked.

I'm fine, sweetheart. Back at the outpost now. You all finish up there and get back here.

I breathed a sign of relief, then returned quickly to the site of the orcs’ strange machinery.

The respawn unit did look like a sarcophagus. It was a giant black rectangular box about 8 feet long and 4 feet wide with a heavy-looking lid. It was covered in alien hieroglyphics outlined in gold. Lakshmi, at my orders, had used Crystal Vibrations on the respawn artifact. It meant that when we killed the orcs, they came back on their ship, not here. It would take them several minutes to reach this point.

"How do we destroy this thing?" I asked.

"Leave that to me," Mitch said. He was pulling a bunch of strings and small brown-paper-wrapped parcels from his inventory.

"Alright, then the rest of you, let's get on that." I indicated the siege weapon. The orcs had finished setting it up. It had four rough wooden wheels in two sets with solid axles running between them, a 4 foot by 4 foot platform atop the wheels, and then a construct on top of the platform that looked like a cross between a small battering ram and a trebuchet. Like if somehow you were using the battering ram part as the counterweight to the trebuchet. I didn't see how it could possibly work or how it ought to be able to punch through walls it was right up against, but none of this alien technology necessarily made sense.

"Come on," I said, putting my shoulder to the contraption. "Let's get this back to our outpost."

Sage giggled as she cast Cowgirl Cheer on all of us. It put a spring in my step. Then I grabbed at the device and we started pushing it.

It was damn heavy. It took us nearly 15 minutes to get it the less than a quarter mile up the hill to our outpost. As soon as we had it inside the walls, the weight dropped away.

"It's under our control now," Sage said as she used her Eye-Spy ability on the thing. "Since it's inside our outpost and under our control, we can move it more easily."

"Let's get it to the inner circle," I said. I was checking my map every few seconds. The red dots had reached the island on the far side five minutes ago and were rushing through the jungle at what must be a breakneck speed. I closed the first gate behind me just in case the orcs reached us before we had their device back to our inner circle.

As I helped my team haul the orcs’ siege weapon next to our node, I couldn't help grinning. "Veda better not have anything bad to say about this one," I observed. "We stole this fair and square." I checked my map again. The orcs were almost back to their encampment, and I saw that Mitch was still there. "What's wrong?" I sent. "Do you need help?"

"Let me have this one, boss," he said. I couldn't figure out what he was talking about.

The first four orc dots reached the green dot. Two seconds later, an enormous fireball rocked the forest. The four red dots and the green dot all vanished. A moment later, Mitch emerged from our player respawn, minor respawn point.

He stretched, a grin splitting his face side to side. "Woohoo! That's the best I ever done blew up. How about that, eh? They were nearly back by the time I got done rigging it to blow, so I thought I'd see if I could lure a few of them in."

"Mitch, you're a genius," I said. I couldn't help feeling delighted. "What's the score?" I asked Sage. I had been keeping track myself, but Sage was having a blast with all of this. She had stayed out of trouble, like I asked, and I wanted her to be sure that we knew she was an important part of this team. "We need forty-five kills in one hour to give them that hour-long respawn timer. They should pull back if we’re close to reaching that number."

"We killed twelve on their first assault, then all fifteen at the camp," she rattled off, "and four just now. So that's thirty-one. Fourteen more, and we've won this."

"Fourteen more in the next…" I checked the System clock and was surprised to see it had only been twenty-three minutes since the start of the orc assault. "Uh, thirty-seven minutes. We can do this," I said excitedly to Grandpa. We could get the forty-five kills within one hour it would take to give them a permanent one-hour timer on their respawns. No way they’d keep fighting with that at stake.

We regrouped, checked everyone's buffs, and waited for the next assault.

It didn't come. The orcs were huddling back where their equipment had been destroyed. "Are they trying to fix or salvage their sarcophagus?" I asked Mitch, who shook his head.

"I know this alien tech stuff is something else, but there is no way that thing is in any pieces bigger than my thumb," he said, holding up his right hand to make his point. Then he stared at the thumb, shaking his head. "Still can't quite get used to having that thumb back," he said. "I know this is all kinds of messed up, but there are some benefits to this reality engine thing. I was down to seven fingers and one thumb when I got taken."

I was going to reply when some movement on my map disrupted me. "We've got incoming," I said. "Just two of them."

We assembled at the edges of our walls to watch. A pair of orcs, one of the sorcerers and one of the halberd bearers, marched out into the open field between our first line of defense and the forest. They stopped just outside range of our turrets, and the halberd bearer attached something to his shaft. He held it up, and the wind caught a white piece of cloth waving.

I looked at Grandpa. "You reckon that means parley in orc talk?"

"I suspect the system has filled them in on Earth customs," Grandpa said. "Come on, Shad, let's go have a chat."

"What if it's a trap?" Sage demanded.

"Then we will be at four deaths to their thirty-one,” Grandpa remarked. "And their respawn point is destroyed. I think we can take the risk."