I’ve been playing a bit of Planetside 2 (a bit may be an understatement at times), and by far one of the changes that have added the most fun to the game for me has been the addition of the Harasser, an armored buggy capable of equipping a battle-tank secondary weapon and carrying another soldier in the back for extra pain dishing. But what I like the most about this glorious machine is not it’s armaments (impressive as they may be), but rather its uncanny ability to get you into the most absurd of situations due to its mobility. Mobility that is multiplied by the unlockable NFI-2000 turbo, giving you a quick boost of acceleration to get you up to speed, up to a fleeing enemy, or…hell, even up walls if you time it right.

Just such a situation happened the other day, where me and my gunner were perched atop a rock archway lobbing missiles at passing enemy armor below. Well, the enemy armor found their way out of our sights. Sure would take a long time to drive down, so I decided that a more direct approach was needed here. What happened next is a story that just begged to be told, so check it out as I narrate the crazy course of events that so often transpire when behind the wheel of the Harasser.

Take a seat, and I’ll spin you a yarn about the most righteous war machine I’ve ever had the pleasure of employing on the field of battle: the Harasser.

We were fighting around NS Material Storage, and had pushed the Terran Republic back down the canyons to Howling Pass, at which point I had a Harasser on top of the archway to the east with a fellow freedom fighter laying down Enforcer fire at any enemy that moved up the road. Problem was, they weren’t moving up the road far enough to be within elevation of our attacks, and other enemies had already moved up the road and around the corner. We were without targets, an untenable position for warriors such as us.

The only reasonable course of action was naturally to turbo boost off the archway and engage these dogs at point blank range. We dropped from our perch onto the middle of the road, barreled up behind a Prowler, and dropped it like it was hot with some well placed rounds to the exposed exhaust of its rear end. Thereafter, we found that a friendly Vanguard was blocking our immediate path back up to the outpost. Feeling the need to keep moving, as often is the case when I’m in my Harasser, I did a 180° and decided to play chicken with the three Lightning tanks down the road, whose drivers were probably rather surprised to see us swoop down from the sky like a mighty eagle ahead of them and lay waste to their front line Prowler. Apparently rattled and in fear for their lives, none of them could consistently land a shot on us as we sped toward them.

Now, going head to head with a couple of Lightning tanks was not a winning proposition in my mind, so I banked hard into the wall and punched the turbo, riding the wall as we peppered the tanks below us. We came down from the wall and blasted on past them around the corner. Certain that the tanks would attempt pursuit if their wits had not left them entirely after the spectacle they had just witnessed, there was only one option in my mind–to end this guerrilla strike just how it began, by jumping off the cliff ahead of us under the power of our NFI-2000 turbo unit. My Harasser sailed through the air with all the grace of an unladen swallow, flying down to the seabed floor and coming to rest by a piece of long-dead coral.

Rejoicing in our great success, we set to repairing our wheeled chariot of glory, when we found ourselves suddenly under fire by an enemy Liberator. Hopping back in, we boosted towards the nearest cover–I knew this terrain would offer us no chance against an aerial target this far from any possible anti-air support. This noble machine did not deserve to die at the hands of any Terran Republic soldier. It deserved to go out in the way it lived: radically.

I found the nearest sand dune, power slid into it, and bailed into cover as I watched the marvelous machine roll end over end, catching on fire and exploding in a fireball of defiant triumph, depriving the overflying Liberator of what they may have thought was their prey. It doesn’t seem physically possible, but that is the wonder that is the Harasser, the Wingless Bird of Prey.

I redeployed to rejoin the fight, and pulled my next Harasser…