Free Insidious by Michael McCloskey

looked more like robotic giraffes with long thin heads like tank barrels. Aldriena wondered why they didn’t start shooting right away. Perhaps their range had been limited for the game? The challenges tended to be complex; she supposed there were many variables she couldn’t see. Perhaps they each had different armor and sensing capabilities as well.
    Red’s forward screen met Johnson’s army. The black soldiers died in a crisscross flurry of projectiles emitted from the claws of the white crabs and the heads of the giraffes. The crabs’ fired quickly but only at close range, and the giraffes seemed to have long range but a low rate of fire. They didn’t kill many of Johnson’s army in return, and this brought up a cheer from the observers.
    Red’s army disassembled. Each of his units fell back to its components and they shuffled themselves in a blur. Aldriena supposed that they would reform to take advantage of what the doomed vanguard of Red’s forces had discovered.
    Johnson had no discernable reaction to the rearrangement of the other army. Aldriena realized that the two players couldn’t see the entire field as the observers could. Johnson hadn’t seen the change in his opponent’s forces. The white army crept forward keeping its double line.
    The black pieces had finished their transformation. It appeared the black army now had crabs and giraffes as well. The giraffes moved forward in a line while the black crabs moved into large clusters on either side.
    Aldriena figured that Johnson believed he pressed an advantage, but actually, he moved toward a trap. Still, she thought at least he had a numerical advantage.
    The white crabs came within the long range of the black giraffes. The crabs started taking damage and couldn’t fire back, so they rushed forward attempting to close with the enemy. The black giraffes were barely faster. Red’s vanguard had observed their enemies carefully. They managed to keep the crabs in range without exposing themselves to counter fire.
    How did the giraffes manage both superior speed and range? Aldriena supposed that their strengths were balanced by a low rate of fire. She saw a crab take a round and survive, so she supposed the crabs might be tougher as well.
    Johnson reacted to the snipers that were hitting his front line. He took too long to realize the crabs were too slow to catch the black giraffes. Then he slowed his front line and let the second line catch up. Meanwhile, the black crabs closed in from either side. They clashed violently with the white crabs, but black had concentrated the crabs on either flank. White collapsed toward the middle. Johnson panicked and pulled back, trying to save his advantage and mass his own counterattack.
    The black giraffes followed the retreat, picking away at the white crabs. The white army couldn’t move any faster than the black one, so his retreat didn’t earn him any respite. Once the white army clumped together and protected itself with massed fire, black retreated. White stayed back, reforming its ranks.
    The black army stopped at a fair distance in a dense line. Once again, the black army transformed. The two armies looked to be about the same size now.
    The white army made changes as well. Johnson disassembled his remaining crabs and turned them all into the giraffes. Then the army moved forward again, keeping itself in a dense arc of units that could cover one another.
    The black units had formed long-legged tripeds. The units dashed forward with surprising speed in a wide line. White caught sight of them and fired, but the giraffes were slow to reload. They got one volley in before the black machines were among them. Then the black army reconfigured again. The white giraffes finally fired again, causing still more black losses. Once again, Aldriena thought there were more white fighters than black ones. But the black units were turning into the rapid-firing crabs inside the white army. They sprayed fire into the white