So, we’re looking at around nine hundred PVP-ready players with us. He stopped to think about that for a minute. That’s actually insane. When considered next to the approximately two hundred and fifty ships they’d also have with them, plus the Veritas II and the Borrelly, things were shaping up for them to have a rather nice army.
And still it wasn’t enough.
Thorne had estimated Warden Corps forces at Custos would number approximately one thousand five hundred wardens. There were a lot more wardens in Nova than that, but with a game so massive they were often spread thin. And there were other important sites which required guarding. As such, the Corps never stacked too many wardens in any one place at one time – unless there was an emergency.
Of the fifteen hundred expected at Custos, not all of them would be max level, of course. And many of them were prisoners participating in the warden program, so there was a chance they were still fairly new to the game, their loyalty to the Corps far from cemented. The bulk of the wardens would be PVP-ready, though, as that was a core focus of the class. Looking at things from a sheer numbers game, their assault was dead in the water, Kaiden knew.
But sheer numbers weren’t the only thing to consider. Time was also a factor.
Once the attack began, the Warden Corps would certainly call for reinforcements. Wardens from all over Nova would flock to Custos. If they were allowed to join the fight, it’d be over. Then there were Moran’s thugs to consider. No one had any idea how many of them he’d recruited into Nova, but it was safe to assume warden numbers would be bolstered a least a bit by them, especially in places of power like the HQ. Ellenton’s latest report on Dawson’s activity had revealed he’d recruited a fair number of free wardens to their side, but would that be enough?
The only boon of the entire plan was that Moran wouldn’t know it was coming. The element of surprise meant the warden leader wouldn’t be able to amass troops before the fight, but more importantly, that he wouldn’t be there himself. Thorne hadn’t gone into the specifics of Moran’s class, but Kaiden knew the basics. As commander of the Warden Corps Moran was allowed to be a special class: Warden Hierarch. Exactly what abilities that brought with it Kaiden didn’t know, and didn’t need to know. No part of this plan involved fighting Moran and he intended to keep it that way. In and out before the commander could react.
The whole plan hinged on the idea that neither the Warden Corps nor the Party knew this attack was coming. That was the only way it could succeed. The element of surprise was absolutely essential.
So, we need more soldiers on our side, but we need to keep things quiet. And as soon as we attack Warden HQ, we’ll be on a timer before reinforcements arrive.
Kaiden felt his jaw clench. All of their efforts up to this point had felt like they were finally making progress. Like they truly had a chance at this thing. But now, sitting down and running the numbers, it wasn’t looking good.
At least they didn’t need to outnumber the Warden Corps force. Considering the plan was to infiltrate Warden HQ and blast Bernstein’s database out to every player through the All-Frequencies Broadcast System, they didn’t actually need to ‘win’ the battle. No, their victory condition came through reaching the system control room. Everything after that didn’t matter. They could die in-game. Their forces could be defeated by Warden Corps reinforcements. All that mattered was sending the database out.
That’s something I can work with, Kaiden thought as his mind began working through the possibilities. We just need to get to that control room, which means the bulk of our forces are really just there to delay. An elite core of them will need to fight their way into the control room. If we can achieve that, we win.
So, that was the game plan, obviously. Even before he’d run the numbers just now, everyone had agreed on that. The problem, and the reason he’d decided to run the numbers in the first place, was that their current force was still too small to achieve not even total victory, but just the smaller objective of fighting into the control room. If the Warden Corps fielded fifteen hundred troops in defense of the base Kaiden needed to have at least that number of troops just to hold out long enough to buy him and the others time to make it to the control room.
But they were fresh out of troops. Maximus was on their side, plus a good hundred or so free wardens thanks to Dawson, and now Odditor and his guilds as well. And still that wasn’t enough.
So, what, then? Where could they find more support? Kaiden wanted his immediate answer to be The Syndicate, but they’d already said no. Even if PlayaSlaya or Odditor could arrange for him to speak before them again, what good would that do?
The problem remained. What could change the game in their favor?
That was the question he didn’t have an answer for. The question no one seemed to have an answer for. Not Zelda, Titus, nor even Thorne.
Kaiden swiped angrily and the projection of Whenstone’s document in front of him faded into swirling pixels.
“What about you, old man?” he asked aloud and opened up a copy of Bernstein’s database. “You always had an answer.” He began flipping through the files in the database, opening some, bypassing others.
But he’d been through all this before. So had Zelda. Together they’d combed every bit of Bernstein’s database and all they’d found had been evidence of more crimes, video recordings of Bernstein’s occasional ramblings, and in a few places, broken links from where
