Chapter 8: The Hunt

Adrian shut off the VOD. Elias looked over.

“That bad?”

“Worse.”

“How?”

“Useless.”

That got Amy’s attention. She had been sitting sideways in one of the chairs, half watching Electrum’s previous tournament match and half studying the updated bracket. Now she looked fully at Adrian.

“Useless?”

Adrian gestured toward the blank screen.

“I can’t scout them from this.”

“Why not?”

“Because their shot-callers are gone, Elias.”

Elias leaned back. Adrian counted them off.

“Captain.”

One finger.

“Vice-captain.”

Second finger.

“One of their other senior players.”

Third.

“Gone.”

Amy grimaced. Everyone knew the story by now. It had become one of the Summer Tournament’s bigger talking points over the previous two days. Electrum had entered the tournament as a dangerous semi-professional team. Not a favorite. Not one of the monsters lurking near the top of the semi-pro rankings.

But good. Experienced. Well organized. Good enough to reach the Round of Sixteen. Then the Amarillo Missiles had arrived with money. Lots of it. The Missiles were a Pro League organization currently discovering exactly how unpleasant relegation pressure could become. They were too close to the bottom.

They were panicking. And somewhere inside the organization, someone had looked at Electrum and decided three of its players could help. Tournament rules made last-minute roster changes difficult. A team could negotiate a transfer, but it could not induce a player to break a contract or simply register an unapproved replacement after the roster lock.

The restriction was not a blanket ban on transfers between semi-professional teams during the season. A Pro League organization, meanwhile, could sign a semi-professional player whose agreement allowed him to leave. That was what made Amarillo’s move possible. They were free to leave.

Amarillo did not merely want them. Amarillo wanted them immediately. Apparently, enough money had changed hands to ensure they did not have to wait until Electrum’s Summer Tournament run ended. The captain. The vice-captain. One more starter. All wearing Amarillo colors now. Reuben stared at the dark screen.

“They really took all three?”

“Yes,” Elias said.

“Couldn’t they wait?”

Amy snorted.

“They’re trying not to get relegated. I’m guessing ‘please wait ten days while our new players finish helping somebody else’ wasn’t high on the priority list.”

Adrian shook his head.

“That isn’t the problem.”

“What is?”

“They didn’t just take three good pilots.”

He pointed at the screen.

“They took the voices.”

Nobody spoke. Adrian continued. “You can replace a pilot.”

Amy raised an eyebrow.

“Thanks.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do.”

“You can find someone who knows how to run the WarMAC. Somebody who understands the role. Maybe they’re not as good, but they can do the job.”

He tapped the table.

“You don’t replace command structure in three days.”

Elias nodded. Adrian looked frustrated.

“The VOD tells me what Electrum looked like when those three people were making decisions.”

He switched the screen back on. The old footage resumed. Electrum moved beautifully. Not Quantum Core beautifully. Different. There was more aggression here. More willingness to gamble. But the response was immediate. One pilot moved. Another knew why. A flank opened. Someone filled it before the danger became obvious.

The captain made a call. Six machines became one thought. Adrian paused it.

“That team doesn’t exist anymore.”

Amy frowned.

“The pilots do.”

“Some of them.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah.”

Adrian stared at the frozen image.

“They have to promote people on the fly.”

Elias folded his arms.

“Someone becomes captain.”

“Sure.”

“Someone else takes vice-captain.”

“Sure.”

“And?”

Adrian looked at him.

“You don’t fix that in days.”

Silence.

Then Cass asked:

“So how do we scout them?”

Adrian shut the VOD off again.

“We don’t.”

Cass blinked.

“We go in blind?”

“Not completely.”

He stood.

“We know their machines. We know most of their pilots. We know what they were good at.”

“But?”

“But anything I build around their old tendencies could be worse than useless.”

He looked around the room.

“I’d be preparing us to fight ghosts.”

Amy leaned forward.

“So what’s the plan?”

Adrian thought about it.

“Pressure.”

“That’s it?”

“Pressure everywhere.”

Elias smiled faintly. Adrian continued. “Find out who they’re listening to now.”

Amy understood.

“Scout them during the match.”

“Yes.”

“Find the new shot-caller.”

“More importantly, find out how quickly everyone else trusts the new shot-caller.”

That was a much uglier question. Reuben grimaced.

“Jesus.”

Adrian nodded.

“They’re still a good team.”

He looked at the blank screen.

“But they may not be a team yet.”

The duel round was Electrum’s best chance. Everybody knew it. No complicated command structure. No battlefield-wide calls. No captain trying to keep four or six people operating on the same clock. Just pilots. Reforged won. Two points. It was not humiliating. Electrum fought well.

One of their replacement pilots surprised Amy enough that she spent almost thirty seconds genuinely annoyed. He was quick. Aggressive. Better than she expected. She eventually took him apart. But he made her work for it. Adrian had a similar experience.

When the round ended, the scoreboard read:

REFORGED 2

ELECTRUM 0

Amy removed her headset.

“They’re not dead.”

“No,” Adrian said.

“Not even close.”

“No.”

She looked toward the Electrum side of the tournament interface.

“They can play.”

“I told you.”

“So this could still get ugly.”

Adrian hesitated.

“Maybe.”

Amy frowned.

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“Wait for the fours.”

They saw it within ninety seconds. The first four-versus-four began normally. Electrum spread. Reforged probed. Nothing unusual. Nothing catastrophic. Then Elias applied pressure to the left. Not much. Just enough that Electrum needed to decide what it meant. Two Electrum pilots started shifting.

The other two held. Elias watched.

“Interesting.”

Cass, observing from behind him, leaned closer.

“What?”

“Wait.”

The Electrum formation started moving left. Then stopped. One pilot reversed. Another continued. The call came. Amy could not hear it. She could see it. Suddenly the remaining two pilots started moving left.

Except the first pair had already adjusted to what they thought the call would be. One was turning back toward center. The other had started looking for a new firing angle. Now the actual order arrived. They corrected again. Elias did not hesitate.

“Push.”

Reforged hit. Not hard enough to overcommit. Just hard enough to punish the delay. One Electrum machine took fire from two directions. Its partner tried to help. Late. The other two finally reached the position they had originally been expected to take. By then the battlefield had changed.

Cass whispered:

“There.”

Elias nodded.

“That’s it.”

They were not ignoring orders. They were anticipating them. That was worse. For years, or months, or however long this Electrum roster had played together, certain situations had produced certain calls. Pilots learned. They did not wait for every word. They saw the battlefield. They knew what their captain would say.

They began moving before the sentence finished. That was how good teams became fast. Now those instincts were betraying them. The situation appeared. Electrum’s players anticipated the old call. Then the new call came. Late. Different. Not necessarily wrong. Just different. And everyone had to adjust twice.

Against a lesser team, maybe that would not matter. Against Reforged, it mattered immediately. Elias changed pressure again. Electrum started to respond. The call came. Half the formation changed direction. Reforged hit the gap. One machine went down. Then another. The fight lasted longer than the score suggested.

Electrum’s pilots were good enough to make it expensive. But once they fell behind, the delays became worse. More decisions. More urgency. Less trust. The first four-versus-four ended.