“This isn’t working,” said Nic. “We need to change strategies.”

“This late in the game?” Jarek asked. “I ain’t arguin’, just... What did you have in mind?”

In a three-team free-for-all, vehicles were even more short-lived than in standard two-team Wargames. The carnage had all happened before the first point was even scored. All of their potential rides were now smoking wreckage, much to Perri’s dismay and Nic’s mounting frustration. Team Scarlet was reduced to fetching all their flags on foot; gone were any hopes of a singular battlefield item turning the tide in their favor.

“Forget the sub-teams. Forget the divide and conquer... We’re picking one squad and we’re all going to rush their flag. It worked for Xanthic. It’ll work for us.”

Perri got straight to the point. “Target?”

SCARLET FLAG CAPTURED! SCARLET: 0 | TYRIAN: 0 | >XANTHIC: 1

Yellow Base should be free now, Nic thought. He opened his mouth to issue an order but another notification cut him off.

XANTHIC FLAG CAPTURED! SCARLET: 0 | >TYRIAN: 1 | XANTHIC: 1

Toss-up. “Target Xanthic,” he finally replied.

“It’ll be a tug-of-war, then,” said Maqsud. “Team Tyrian is already making off with their flag as we speak.”

“That doesn’t even seem possible,” Nic marveled.

“It appears their strategy is even more advanced than Xanthic’s. Not only are they pushing to capture, they have players already stationed at an enemy base and waiting for the new flag to spawn. Genius.”

Nic shook his head. “Ruthless. And that’s what we’ll have to be to win.”

But just as in Power Play, Nic was getting a sneaking suspicion that victory would be just out of their grasp yet again.

TYRIAN FLAG CAPTURED! >SCARLET: 1 | TYRIAN: 1 | XANTHIC: 1

“That’s what’s up!” Jarek celebrated. “All tied up now. Neck and neck! And... neck. We can do this, y’all!”

“That’s right!” Perri agreed. “So, Nic, should we move on Purple Base now?”

For a split second, he remembered playing King of the Hill on the fateful day he earned himself a scar. He remembered the cold boniness of Daniel’s wrist as he grabbed his classmate and hurled him off the play structure. Remembered his back being turned when Mario tried to push him—turning to face his adversary, only for the hand of one of his peers to close around his face, casting him down the hill, slicing open his chin on the exposed terraplastic corner. Helplessness.

“Nic?” Perri repeated.

“Purple Base,” Scarlet 1 assented. Tyrian’s still our biggest threat. But we have to remember not to count Xanthic out, either. And I thought things were tough when we had just one enemy squad...

Team Scarlet converged on the target, flexing all of their muscle on one pressure point, the apparently vacant Purple Base. Nic took in the vivid sounds of the battlefield carried by the dense atmosphere of Nereus—the staccato of SMG fire, the odd explosion. The metallic feet of his proxybot kicked up arcs of mud and rattling pebbles as he ran. He wondered what the air smelled like. Ocean. Whatever that smell was.

Nic, Perri, and Shanti were the first ones there. There was still no sign of opposing players. Jarek and Maqsud arrived shortly thereafter.

“Taking volunteers for flagbearer,” said Nic.

“I’ll take it,” said Jarek. “I’m not much in a gunfight. But I can sure as hell outrun anyone comin’ after us.”

Nic nodded. “Perri, Shanti, clear a path, please.” Scarlets 3 and 5 got a head start on the run back to Red Base.

“You sell yourself short, Jarek,” Maqsud told him, patting him on the shoulder as he walked past. Jarek yanked the astrosteel flagpole out of Team Tyrian’s base and Nic watched the holographic purple flag droop limply in transit. When Scarlet 2 took off sprinting, however, the simulated banner stood at attention, flapping against the imaginary wind resistance.

Nic and Maqsud bolted after Jarek to provide cover from behind. “I got company,” Jarek huffed. “West of my position... two Xanthic...”

“On it,” said Nic. “I see them.” Down from the top of a precarious tor came two yellow proxybots already shooting, their wasted rounds spitting up plumes of mud as they raised their guns on target. He and Max had the advantage of more stable footing to shoot while they ran.

“Contemptible interlopers,” Maqsud hissed in the team chat, and then, through his external speakers, “Can’t you see our friend is trying to make a simple delivery? Have you no manners?” He reloaded on pace with their yellow adversaries. Nic threw a Frag Grenade before drawing his Pistol, and by that point, the two Scarlet escorts made short work of them—all without stopping once.

“Almost there,” Jarek grunted with exertion.

“We’re here,” Perri huffed. “We’re here—Red Base! Nobody’s here! Small problem...”

“Tell me,” said Nic.

“No... flag... Our flag’s not here.”

Damn, he lamented. This isn’t like Arena. No vehicles, and only two points between us and a loss. I feel like there’s no way to catch up to either squad now... No, no, there’s gotta be a way. There’s got to be some way. Every game is winnable.

But that’s what I said last time.

SCARLET FLAG CAPTURED! SCARLET: 1 | TYRIAN: 1 | >XANTHIC: 2 XANTHIC FLAG CAPTURED! SCARLET: 1 | >TYRIAN: 2 | XANTHIC: 2

“That is less than ideal,” Maqsud muttered.

“I see Red Base!” said Jarek. “I see it! 30 seconds!”

“Nic, what do we do?” Perri asked frantically. “Stay and support? Or head out? We’re running out of time. I... I see a gunfight already happening on Yellow Base. Tyrian’s already there!”

“Damn,” Jarek panted. “So... I’m about to score this... but it won’t even... really help us?”

Maqsud spoke up next. “I’m compelled to concur, Nic—victory seems all but unattainable now. We have no vehicles. We have no long-range wapons. We simply can’t outrun the other squads to capture another flag before they do. By the time we reach Purple Base, Team Tyrian could well be scoring. There’s nothing we can do, is there?”

Nic let the question linger a moment. He knew he was expected to defy all odds and come up with the game-winning strategy for his squad. Deep down, though, he’d accepted that just by crunching the numbers, their defeat was almost completely guaranteed.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Nic agreed.

TYRIAN FLAG CAPTURED! >SCARLET: 2 | TYRIAN: 2 | XANTHIC: 2

“What good is that?” Perri asked. “So, we just lose everything? That’s what you’re saying?”

“No. We lose the battle and win the war.”

“Ah,” said Max with a click of his tongue. “I see where your mind is going.”

“We have to let Xanthic take the win this time. We do everything we can to stop Tyrian. That’ll keep us in the match.”

“Nic,” Perri argued, the anger bubbling up in her voice, “that’ll just give us two enemies that we need to beat twice in a row! They’ll both be just one victory away from taking Nereus—and everything we’ve worked for here!”

“It gives us a chance. The alternative is Tyrian winning Nereus right now.”

Silence ruled the team chat, permeated only by the occasional static interference. Nic’s solution was not the rallying cry his squad wanted. It was the hard pill they all needed to swallow.

When no one replied, Nic motioned for Maqsud to follow him back to Purple Base, and the Squad Leader said stoically, “I need a volunteer to run our flag to Yellow Base. We need to cut Xanthic’s time down by any means necessary. You will be bait, and you will be killed in the process.”

Perri sighed, apparently still in an arguing mood. “Nic—”

“I’ll do it,” said Jarek. Through the team chat, Nic could hear the astrosteel flagpole clank against their metal base, the clunking, running steps of Jarek’s proxy setting off toward an enemy base.

I can always count on you, brother, Nic thought dejectedly. “Everyone else,” he announced, “double time it to Purple Base! We need to intercept Team Tyrian. Concentrate your fire on their flag carrier—throw everything you have until you see a confirmed death notification in your HUD. Then we transition to any escorts. Please acknowledge.”

“Acknowledged,” said Maqsud. And Max, I can always trust you to see the writing on the wall, even if it’s unpleasant.

“[I acknowledge,]” Shanti’s thought-to-speech software answered.

Perri took the longest to respond. “Acknowledged.” Nic had some sympathy for her; it was an awful, gut-wrenching feeling for him to charge headlong into his own defeat, knowing there was nothing he could do. The only solace he found was in knowing that the match wasn’t over—that if they played all their cards exactly right, they’d still have a chance of winning it all.

The four free members of Team Scarlet arrived on Purple Base. When they saw Tyrian approaching from the distance, Nic ordered them to charge. They needed to delay their purple foes as far from the Score Zone as possible. The fight was four on five, and Nic was proud to know that it was a close fight that traded bot for bot. Only one Tyrian player was left alive, damaged, to recover the yellow flag.

But as Nic was in the process of being gunned down, the last Scarlet survivor, he was greeted with a beautiful notification.

SCARLET FLAG CAPTURED! SCARLET: 2 | TYRIAN: 2 | >XANTHIC: 3 GAME OVER TEAM XANTHIC: VICTORY!

“Screw the lot of them,” said Maqsud in the Simnasium. Everyone’s helmets whirred open, the support cords dangling them in place like idle marionettes. “As the Americans of Earth were once fond of saying: ‘That’s all she wrote.’”

Nic ground his teeth. Through the fog of his own anger at another crushing loss, he forced himself to congratulate his squad on their obedience to the plan. “Good work out there, Scarlet. I know it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like we just handed Xanthic their win.”

“I did,” Jarek couldn’t help but chuckle. “Right? I mean, that was the plan.”

Nic nodded. “And you executed it perfectly—all four of you. You didn’t throw away our victory. You bought us another shot at it. During Capture the Flag, it was my fault for picking the wrong strategy at the start—I guess a three-way competition is more complicated than I thought. I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

TEAM FREE-FOR-ALL SCARLET: 1 | TYRIAN: 2 | >XANTHIC: 2

It was one of the duties of RTIFIS to announce Wargame results formally, but it always irked Nic to hear the AI’s voice when they didn’t win.

If we don’t win the next two Wargames in a row, thought Nic, we lose everything. It’ll be decades before we can think about retiring. More pain for all these people I care about—my friends—and a greater chance we’ll end up with debilitating diseases like Joe, the kind that even 27th-century medicine can’t cure. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, let alone them... They’re the people who mean the most to me. While his squadmates began to peel themselves out of their synthetic cocoons, he realized that they were probably the closest thing he’d ever have to a family.

I won’t let you down, guys. I won’t let us lose. I promise.

I'd never be able to forgive myself if I did.