“Good, I was worried I was going to have to send someone into the tent and drag you out. Are you both ready to proceed?” Colonel Hallowell asked as the pair walked up to him.
“What exactly do we do now?” Phil asked, looking around the open-sided tent.
“The GGS was very specific in their instructions for us. We were to leave you here without any modern weapons or support other this tent, rations, and water to last you two for several days. All the military forces must withdraw in the next hour which is also when whatever is coming here to attack will begin moving again.
As soon as we leave, whatever the GGS has planned for you will take effect. I wish I could tell you more, but we just don’t know,” the colonel said. Being left alone on the island without any soldiers to help was not something he wanted.
“What? You’re going to strand us here? What if we need help?” Derek said as the panic that Phil also felt starting to seep into his voice.
“We have no choice, any of us who get within a hundred miles of the island will be obliterated by the GGS. A fleet is forming just outside of the restricted zone and we’ll have a full company of Marines packed into helicopters ready to respond when they can.
As soon as we are allowed to, we’ll come in with our guns blazing, but something tells me that’s not what the aliens have in mind. For now, let me go over the island’s layout, I’m told it’s going to be important for you and that you will need to try and defend both the main islands here,” the colonel advised, pointing toward the map.
Phil wasn’t going to back out, given the catastrophic outcome that quitting would incur, but not knowing what he was supposed to do when the army left was just weird. Trying to focus on the map in front of him, he found that it was somewhat familiar. He had read of the naval battle that took place here in World War 2 and had even gamed the scenario more than once, despite naval miniatures not being his specialty.
There was a reef around the two main islands that made up Midway, leaving the seas somewhat calm in the area. They were on the main island called Sand Island, the tent was set up near the runway and the smaller island to the east was simply called Eastern Island. No structures were remaining after the GGS had done their demolition work and both islands were pretty small. The only terrain features were some palm trees and foliage in the center of the island.
“It looks like I can leave the maps here for you, other than that and the supplies,” Colonel Hallowell pointed toward pallets of MRE’s and water that had been left behind. “It’s all we can do, thank you for your efforts, thank you for stepping up save others,” the colonel said, shaking their hands before waiving the soldiers over to the waiting transport plane.
“Hey, that’s it, goodbye, good luck, hope you don’t die?” Derek called out.
“Ha, welcome to my world Derek, comes with the uniform,” Colonel Hallowell said, pointing to the flag on his sleeve. Phil stopped to think before replying, the colonel and all these men were soldiers, ready to go and risk their lives when the call came.
The colonel stopped at the entrance ramp of the C5 and saluted with Derek and Phil doing their best attempt at a return salute. As the plane lifted off, all the other things that had been left on the island, other than the approved supplies, began to dissolve. The crazy nanobots that the Upgrade had seeded all over Earth began to prepare their battlefield even as interface prompts began to appear.
Congratulations, you have been granted the War Leader class for the duration of this event. The forces you have brought with you will be used in the defense of this island. Supplies will occasionally land by sea if the supply routes are kept open. The creatures attacking your island have been level adjusted to fit the scenario and will be an extremely difficult, yet not impossible foe to defeat. The forces at your disposal will obey your commands and carry them out to the best of their abilities.
Defend your island until the time limit is reached. Once the time limit is reached, support forces from the final human testing this event will arrive to assist you. Hold out human, hold out to save your people from massacre.
Phil’s head hurt as knowledge was forced into his mind by the nanobots. His army would be crafted from and based entirely on the miniatures they had brought to the island. The constructs would be flesh and blood automatons that will function as a normal human soldier of that era would. His forces would be sustained for the duration of the battle without the need for food or water. Their weapons were to be standardized between both his and Derek’s forces. The Springfield model 1851 rifled musket was given to the infantry while the cavalry had their sabers and a pistol. Their artillery crews had a mix of rifles and pistols. Phil didn’t have a weapon and he was to merely direct the battle. If his forces were defeated, the attackers would be able to target him, but until the last of his forces were defeated, he was safe from the enemy.
A timer showing how long they had until the enemy arrived appeared in his interface. By late afternoon, the enemy, whatever they were, would arrive. The cases holding their miniatures began to rattle, opening on their own. Painted minis began to move, enlarging as they stepped for the case and transforming from painted plastic to flesh and blood. Last to exit his case was the pair of artillery pieces, pushed out by their crews. A neighing behind him showed that Derek’s forces were doing the same thing, including the horses for his cavalry.
“Hey, what gives,” Derek said angrily. Phil could see that a tray holding two of his cavalry companies were still sitting there. After seeing which ones hadn’t been animated, Phil started to laugh, despite the situation.
“Well Derek, it looks like the advanced space aliens are a bit stricter with the rules than our group is,” he said, pointing out the minis that hadn’t been transformed were the unpainted or partially painted units.
“Very funny, now I got to fight without a full army, and I just got a notice that I’ve been assigned to the other island. How am I supposed to move my army over there?” Derek asked, pointing toward the nearby island. Several hundred yards separated the two islands, but there was no way they could swim over with their gear, weapons, horses, and ammo.
“Oh, looks like the GGS is going all out to provide some transport ships for you, Derek,” Phil joked as a pair of small boats appeared from nowhere and approached the island. Derek shook his head in annoyance, getting the glazed look on his face that let Phil know he was reading some prompt on his interface.
“I’ve got to go get set up; the enemy is supposed to be here soon, and it’ll take time to get my men over with only those two little boats. Stay safe, Phil. I’m going to be a little short on troops, but I have more artillery and less area to cover so I think it’ll be okay.
Good luck, I know you’ll hold out and we’ll have some crazy stories to tell the gaming group after this is all done,” Derek said, shaking his hand and running off to join the first of his soldiers being ferried across. The small boats would only hold twenty or so men, a pair of horses, or a single gun for each trip, it was going to be a race to see if he could get all his troops over to Eastern Island in time.
Phil tried to think about how he wanted to deploy his troops. He had ten companies of 100 men each and a pair of guns. He believed that the enemy was approaching from the southeast and would come straight at him without any fancy maneuver, at least that’s what the information uploaded into his mind told him. In his interface he could see the path the monsters had taken, originally heading toward and nearly reaching Hawaii, only to turn toward Midway.
He would be outnumbered, which meant the enemy would have what it needed to turn his flank at some point. There was something to be said for digging in at the central point of the island and massing his forces, but that would mean a single breach in their lines would doom them all. No, he would fight over the beach and pull back to progressively shorter lines, eventually forming a square at the center of the island for a final stand if needed.
He didn’t know what type of weapons his enemy had, so he did the best he could as far as defenses went. Unlike their civil war counterparts, his troops were each equipped with a small entrenching shovel that his men put to good use. Six companies, A through F, were working on the beachfront defenses, while the remaining four companies worked on a secondary position a hundred yards further back.
The soil was sandy but firm enough to dig the small protective trench. They didn’t have any sandbags or the like, so the defenses would be simple. In the game they played, such defenses would give the attacker a penalty for any ranged fire, he could only hope this new set of rules imposed by the Upgrade worked in the same way.
It was midafternoon when Phil noticed another pair of small boats similar to the ones ferrying Derek’s troops. These boats beached themselves and the crews began to unload stacks of crates, saying nothing and refusing to respond to his questions. After unloading, the ships paddled away, disappearing from view long before they should have as the nanobots reclaimed the material they had used to make them.
Another pair of boats were unloading a similar stack of crates over on Derek’s island. It turned out they were filled with ammunition, including prefilled paper cartridges, boxes of percussion caps, and fused shells for the artillery.
On the other island, Derek’s troops were digging in like Phil’s forces were. There was only one cavalry company still waiting to cross by this time, so Derek had most of the manpower he would need for digging their defenses. Looking at his watch and the number of troops and horses waiting to cross, Phil wasn’t sure they would all make it over in time.
It was late afternoon, and the defenses were as ready as Phil could get them with the tools at hand. Six companies were on the beach facing the southwest where the enemy should be approaching from. He would keep two companies back to hold the final defensive redoubt, while the other two would be a mobile reserve to assist the main defensive line wherever they were needed.
His only pair of guns were placed behind the main trench line, ready to pull back to the final redoubt if things got too hot for them. He ordered his men to man the defense, keep a watch, and rest while they could. Following his own advice, Phil sat down to relax and prepare another MRE which made him wish for a drive-through on the island. He couldn’t imagine being a real soldier and eating these things for days or months at a time.
“Sir, the enemy approaches!” One of his soldiers called out.
There, out past the reef, he could make out a disturbance in the water. The water was bubbling as things tried to swim or slither toward the island. He couldn’t make out individual creatures but there were enough to cover a front over a mile wide. A new interface popped up into view, and Phil found he could order his companies through this interface. It would help him to reposition his forces, but there wouldn’t be much finesse as he couldn’t select any force smaller than a company. In the interface he could see the countdown timer, they had less than two hours to hold.
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He moved down to the beach to get a better idea of what was coming for them. As the attacking monsters skittered over the reef that protected the two islands, Phil got his first glimpse of the enemy. The creatures were man-sized and had a slimy-looking torso that sprouted large tentacles for its arms and legs. Their heads were oddly distended and featured absurdly large mouths that were filled with serrated teeth. It was a nightmare come to life, and he had only a regiment of civil war soldiers to hold back the tide with.
The angle of the creatures’ advance meant that they would hit Derek’s island shortly before they attacked his. Booming cannon fire echoed between the islands as Derek’s guns got into action. Phil could see the flash of shells bursting over the creatures that were swimming through the last stretch of ocean to reach the nearby meal.
With so many targets, his gunners could hardly miss, and each shell that burst took out several of the creatures. The monsters didn’t seem afraid in the least, eagerly charging forward despite the losses the guns inflicted. Sadly, they all were drawn to the sound of the guns in a manner that would have made Napoleon proud. Instead of coming toward Phil, the entire force shifted its focus on Derek.
It looked like Derek had the same idea for defense, a large force at the beach, and a smaller force held back for a final stand. At a range of 400 yards, the first ranks of his forces disappeared into a cloud of smoke as they fired a rifle volley. Hundreds of minie balls slammed into the ocean, a fair percentage finding the flesh of the creatures. At 350 yards another volley rang out, and at every fifty yards after that, more and more creatures were cut down. His cannon switched to canister shot, then double canister as the enemy closed, turning them into giant shotguns. Entire sections of the enemy were swept away by the final cannon blasts, buying time for the crews to try and hitch up the guns and retreat to their final defensive positions as the enemy threatened to overwhelm the lines of infantry.
The forces that were initially heading toward Phil had hooked around and were positioned to hit Derek in the flank. They met little resistance as Derek was only able to move a single infantry company there to contest their advance. The creatures swarmed ashore and charged directly into the company opposing them. Slimy tentacles met the cold steel of a bayonet as the nanobot created confederate soldiers held their ground, giving as good as they were getting.
Sadly, they were greatly outnumbered and soon overwhelmed. Phil was able to make an estimate of the enemy numbers now that they had all slithered out of the deep. There were about three thousand assaulting Derek’s main defensive line, and a similar number—those that were initially aimed at him—headed in from the flank. Phil tried to help as much as he could, ordering his guns and a company of reserves over to the beach facing Eastern Island. By using solid shot, his artillery could reach part of the enemy force and they began to fire as quickly as the crew could service their guns.
Derek’s troops began to pull back to their final defensive point. The troops executed the retreat well, pausing to unleash volleys of fire to slow the enemy pursuit. Despite their efforts, Phil could see that Derek’s troops weren’t moving fast enough and were going to be overrun.
A bugle call sounded out over the water and the thunder of horse hooves was heard as the cavalry troops that Derek had chosen for his army got into the action. One company assaulted from each side, their initial charge cutting deep into the enemy formations. Pistol shots blasted out and sabers slashed as the riders forced the enemy to focus on them, allowing the remaining infantry to make it into the defensive square that Derek was forming for his final stand.
The cavalry charge was a brave move, but once their momentum was bogging down in the hordes of enemies. They fought on, but the cavalry chage was doomed. One by one they were pulled from their mounts by the abominations around them.
Not wasting any of the time that the cavalry’s sacrifice had granted him, Derek’s infantry reformed their lines. Once in position, they continued to unleash a punishing fire into the mass of monsters. After finishing off the cavalry, the enemy turned its full force on the surviving infantry, pushing hard against the firepower arrayed against them. Derek’s troops were killing the monsters wholesale, but the lines were edging closer together with each passing minute.
Phil knew he had to make some changes; most of his troops were now facing the wrong direction and if Derek fell, he wouldn’t have time to rearrange them. He moved the six companies that manned the trench line to the southeast over so that they now covered the beach facing directly east toward Derek’s island. His pair of six-pounders continued to fire as the troops redeployed, taking out a few of the enemy as they tried to pull pressure off of Derek’s forces. With the orders given and the guns already firing in support, Phil watched his friend’s brave defense.
Having taken some casualties on their retreat, Derek commanded just under 400 infantry and with the guns backing him up, they held for a time. The end came quickly when one of the creatures finally reached the line of soldiers. Several soldiers stopped to stab the monster with their bayonets, but that weakened the firepower on that front, enabling more of the monsters to approach and begin to snatch soldiers from the line.
One corner of the defense crumbled, and the enemy poured into the gap. Derek’s men fought on for several more minutes, but eventually, the last was dragged down by the squirming mass of the enemy. Phil couldn’t see his friend, but after the last soldier had fallen, Phil thought he heard a scream that was quickly cut off.
Without time to mourn his friend, Phil stood there shaking in fear as the monsters turned from Eastern Island and began to move toward his forces. Derek’s men had fought well, killing the enemy at almost three to one, but there were still over four thousand of the creeps heading toward him. He had no hope that he could defeat that large a force. Remembering the rules of the battle, Phil checked on his interface. There it was, his only hope, the countdown timer was down to just over thirty minutes. Derek had held the enemy up for over an hour, but it had seemed to Phil like only a few minutes had passed.
Phil had more infantry in his force than Derek had opted for, and this time, the enemy wasn’t in a solid formation; their troops having been strung out over a large area during their final assault. As the lead monsters began their swim across the channel separating the two islands, his men prepared their weapons to meet them.
When they entered range, the rifled muskets began to tear into the swimming monsters. The first creatures were held off, killed faster than they could approach, but more and more were pouring into the ocean from Eastern Island. He didn’t have any cavalry to sacrifice to buy time for his infantry to fall back, so he ordered the six companies to begin a fighting withdrawal as one of the reserve companies stayed behind to slow the enemy.
As his artillery fired, the men allowed the recoil to move the pieces back, each shot now left the guns ten or so yards closer to the final holdout area. His companies were formed up into two ranks, one of which would fire and then retreat five paces before reloading while the other rank fired. They slowly walked back toward their final defensive line, leaving behind piles of dead alien creatures. His sacrificial company fixed bayonets and charged into the monsters emerging from the sea, the shock of their attack buying enough time for the rest of his troops to retreat the remaining distance.
Phil now had nine hundred troops formed into a square at the center of the island, the two guns supported the corners facing the approaching enemy. There were only twelve minutes left on the countdown. He didn’t know what would happen when the countdown reached zero, but he could only hope the monsters would lose interest in him as the third mystery player entered the fight.
His men fired as quickly as they could, the pair of guns pouring double canister into the approaching enemy as they tried to hold back the tide of monsters. It was working, the enemy had closed to within a hundred yards of his lines, but the firepower was keeping them back, the mass of bodies forced the monsters to clamber over their kin to continue the assault. Phil felt he was going to make it, only two minutes were left when disaster struck.
The monsters tried a new tactic, once that proved very effective. They began to grab the bodies of their fallen kin, using them as shields as the lines crept closer. When in range, the monsters began hurling the bodies of the dead at Phil’s lines, the bodies knocked over his troops and caused breaks in his lines. The men tried to close up any gaps, but the damage was done.
Phil wasn’t sure he was going to make it, his troops were being overrun, falling by the score now that their formation was broken. He figured he had fewer than a hundred men left as Phil pulled a still loaded pistol from the body of one of his gun crew, ready to sell his life as dearly as he could when a strange beeping sound was heard. That was it, the countdown had finished, but the monsters were still focused on him, still attacking what was left of his army.
A half dozen bright lights appeared in the evening sky, drawing his attention from the battle as a sonic boom sounded out. The monsters halted their attacks as well, watching as the six objects hurtled toward them on pillars of fire. As they neared, Phil could see they were some kind of machine, large teardrop-shaped vehicles with a rocket engine on the bottom that was slowing their rapid descent.
All six of the descending objects fired smaller thrusters that were mounted on the side, maneuvering to encircle the battle that had been momentarily halted by their appearance. The shock of the impact when the object’s landed, threw Phil, his few remaining troops, and the monsters to the ground.
With a series of explosions that sounded like gunshots, the sides of the cylinders were blown off. Emerging from the cylinders were giant, ten-foot-tall humanoids encased in armor that looked strangely familiar to Phil. Four of the giants clanged out from each cylinder, all of them holding various futuristic weapons. The newcomers raised their weapons and began to fire.
“Suffer not the alien to live. By the Potentate’s will, attack!” The giants called in unison. That was it, that phrase brought back where he had seen these before. The only difference was that Phil remembered them as miniatures from the popular game, Battleblade 19k that was played at the store they gamed at.
The game featured various spacefaring races with outlandish weapons and vehicles. It was the game that had helped to kill off interest in wargame miniatures, but this time, it looked like they were doing their best to save his life. Blasts of autocannons, lasers, missiles, and blows from power-armored fists cut down the remaining monsters with ease. Though the armor that these allies wore proved nearly impervious to the tentacles of the enemy, more than a few were swarmed and brought down by the enemy during the short fight.
“Wow, that was the coolest thing ever!” A young man called out, walking from one of what Phil now realized were drop pods. The young man was dressed normal and seemed human.
“Who are you?” Phil asked.
“Me? I’m Bradley, who are you?”
“Phil, thanks for that,” he said, gesturing toward the giant warriors that were systematically destroying the last of the enemy.
“I got to see the battle on our way down, that was intense, are those civil war soldiers?” Bradley asked.
“Yeah, historical miniatures,” Phil said, pointing toward his remaining men, who were even now turning back into tiny painted plastic miniatures.
“Battleblade 19k for me, obviously. I assume you and your friend were picked up in a game store like I was,” at the mention of his friend, Phil sat down and put his hands over his face.
“Poor Derek, what am I going to tell his wife,” Phil cried.
“Woah, hold on, your friend on the other island is this Derek guy, right?” the kid asked. Phil nodded. “Dude, he’s good, the things couldn’t kill him until all the soldiers were killed, yours included. I saw him sitting on the other island while you were fighting,” Bradley replied. Relief washed over him as Phil realized Derek was alive.
Thank you for participating in this feature test. Your input has been invaluable in tailoring the Upgrade experience for your world. Any skills and abilities gained by this test will be removed, but as a tester, you will receive a special reward once your world leaves Closed Beta status.
Phil, Derek, and Bradley were all returned safely home. While they didn’t receive anything Upgrade related, the government did offer generous compensation for their time and the risk they undertook to save others. When the government later released footage of the incident, interest in miniature gaming of all sorts began to pick up.
People were curious to try and unlock the ability to do the things they had seen Phil, Derek, and Bradley do. The three of them didn’t bother to reveal that they didn’t get to keep the Upgrade powers they tested, though I suppose that secret will be out when I publish this story.
As for Phil and Derek, they kept in touch with Bradly who lived in a nearby city and the three of them occasionally meet up to play various games together. Rumor has it that the old gamers now enjoy playing Battleblade on occasion, while Bradley is building a Napoleonic army to play with his new friends. Not every Upgrade conflict was on the field of battle or deep inside a dungeon. Some conflicts took part in a different field of battle, with less deadly stakes…