Howl: A World at War Novel (6 page)

Crack.

Even inside the cockpit, surrounded by the rush of air and the engine noise the sound of a sniper rifle was distinct.

“I don't see any more targets,” Miko said through the radio.

“
Keep searching,” Zach said. Out of the many crazy ideas they had come up with, this had to be the most insane. Zach was flying in a helicopter with a Raven Company pilot, with Miko sitting on a bench seat on the starboard side. She had rigged a harness to steady her sniper rifle with the aid of Paige from Hephaestus Company, and was using her elevated position to find and pick off targets.

Sniping from a helicopter was fairly commonplace in the real world, but this definitely wasn't the best vehicle to do it from. The small mass of the chopper meant there was less inertia to absorb the vibrations from the engine, so there was noticeable movement. Miko was also extremely exposed, and it was fairly easy to see that she was sniping. That would probably attract all manner of fire once the enemy figured out what they were doing. Then again, it was probably worth the hassle.

“I still don't see anything,” Miko said. “Selene's platoon swept the walls, and Liz has the shore pretty well cleared out. No clue what's going on in the main building, but it's not like I can really do anything with that.”

“
We'll see if there's anything else to do,” Zach said. He opened up a channel. “Bravo Wolf, Bravo Wolf, what's your status?”

“We have the area outside secure,” Danny responded. “Selene took a squad in to support Xavier and Javy. I can still hear some firing, but we should have this entire place secure in a few minutes.”

“
Copy that, Danny. Get in contact with Anna and Nora. We want to be quick about getting the overdrive.”

“
Sure thing,” Danny said. That was where Robber Baron got its name. They were going to steal as much overdrive as possible, give Ronin their share and then put the rest back on the market. The price would skyrocket since Ragnarok would need to replenish their stocks. That would also take valuable funds away from other things that Ragnarok needed to fight. It would definitely put them on the back foot.

Danny wasn't as optimistic as some of the others in Hydra were. He knew that even with the string of victories they had won, there was no way they could beat Ragnarok in an all-out war. The best they could hope for was a stalemate and an uneasy peace, because their enemy had too many troops and too many resources to call upon.

Ragnarok had gained a reputation for using hordes of low level troops, but they had veterans too, and they could match up against anything that Hydra had to offer. They had heard other things from their contacts inside Ronin. Reports were fuzzy at the moment, but they knew that Ragnarok was deploying an elite unit against them, consisting of only veterans. The Valkyries, they were known as, and they were deadly. They hadn't run into them yet, but Danny had the suspicion that an operation like this was going to attract a lot of attention.

But he still had a job to do. “Wolf 2, Wolf 2, come in. This is Bravo Wolf,” Danny said.

“I read you Danny. What's up?”

“
Can you get the boats up to the docks? We're almost finished clearing out the base. We'll get the crews ready to load everything up.” He saw Liz and a few other Redd Foxx members emerge from the dock area and waved them over.

“
Will do,” Nora told him.

Danny looked back at the main building. Now the rest was up to Selene.

She had to give them credit, at least. Taken off guard by the initial onslaught, cut down in droves, driven back into a corner and hopelessly outnumbered, the few remaining Ragnarok troops had fought ferociously, refusing to give an inch without bloodshed. Between the four attacking squads the Ragnarok defenders had killed nine troops and injured a further five. Her troops had finally resorted to storming the last room the enemy was holed up in, but that cost them two more dead.

“That's not good,” Leigh said as she knelt by a mass of wires and boxes. “There's about thirty boxes of explosives here, and it looks like they were trying to rig up a bomb to take us with them.”

“
Blow yourself up to take the enemy squad with you,” Selene said to herself.

“
The squad?” Leigh said. “They might have been able to take out three quarters of the company with a bomb this size.”

“
Good to know,” Selene said in a matter-of-fact tone. She activated her radio. “All leads, the central building is secure. We've taken fairly heavy casualties, so we need some help moving the overdrive supplies to the boats.”

“
Copy that. We're on our way,” Liz told her.

“
Selene, we're in the main storeroom,” Xavier cut in. “You might want to see this.”

Selene motioned for Leigh to follow her. She passed Lyla and Javy treating casualties in the main hallway. Others were stripping the dead bodies of ammunition and other vital equipment. World at War was funny in that way. Even if you were killed you could still get your equipment back as long as you have a friend to grab it off of your corpse.

Xavier peeked his head out from a doorway. “In here,” he told them. Selene and Leigh followed behind him.

“
What the heck?” Leigh said as she entered the room. Selene's thoughts echoed that sentiment. The room was huge, and it was packed from wall to floor with crates of overdrive. Selene was trying to remember if they had even produced this much. They must have, since they were the only ones with the formula, but it was still mind-boggling. Ragnarok must have been hoarding the stuff for months on end. Even if they used every bit of transport space they had they wouldn't be able to carry all of it.

“
We're never going to be able to move all of this in time,” Xavier said.

“
Do what you can,” Selene told him. Her mind was racing, trying to come up with a solution. “Hey Leigh, you said that the bomb they were trying to make could blast this entire place?”

“
Yeah,” Leigh answered.

“
Do you think that you could finish it up and rig it with a remote detonator?”

“
Yeah, that's doable. Though it would help if I had a few others with me.”

“
Grab who you need, and let us know how it's going. We're going to load up as much overdrive as possible while you're doing that,” Selene said. Ragnarok was going to get one heck of a parting gift.

Even from his altitude he could feel the shockwave from the explosion. Zach was forced to shield his eyes as the entire world lit up in front of them. Once second the base was in front of them, and the next all that remained was a smoking pile of rubble.

“
Jeeze, did they use enough explosives?” Miko commented. “I could feel the heat up here.”

“
C.J. might not be happy,” Zach said,

“
C.J. will be plenty happy,” Miko said. “For him it means that Ragnarok doesn't have their dirty hands on their base anymore.”

“
True enough,” Zach said. He looked around at the swarm of helicopters joining up with them. Down below Redd Foxx was motoring back down the river.

Anna's voice cut in. “Great job, everyone. Let's head for home.”

“Roger that,” Zach replied to her. Mission accomplished.

CHAPTER 6

To the South

“I'd say our mission was a success,” Liz said.

“
I would agree with that,” Selene replied. They were having an informal meeting in Black Wolf's base, going over the aftermath of their raid. Ragnarok was reeling from the attack. The loss of so much overdrive had forced them to pull back their forces and focus on rebuilding their shattered economy. The pressure was off of Hydra and Ronin for the time being.

Speaking of Ronin Company, their attack on Fort Baldr had been a success. Despite heavy casualties they had taken the fort with the support of Bravehart's mortar fire. They now had a position across the river, right in the heart of Ragnarok territory. Ronin was grateful to them for their support, and they were prepared to fight like furies to defend their new position.

Ronin would need that determination, Selene thought to herself. The fort was isolated, a threat to Ragnarok's main power base outside of Old Chicago, and a stain on their reputation to boot. They would try everything in order to take it back, and that suited Hydra just fine. Ronin would take the brunt of the fighting for the time being, leaving Hydra free to do what they needed in the south. It would suck for Ronin, but was that really their problem?

“
From what I've heard Ragnarok is beefing up their garrisons in the north,” Zach said.

Anna confirmed that. “They have to guard against the possibility of a raid, even if it's miles behind the front line. That cuts their effective troop strength down by a lot.”

“Still, they're hard fighters,” Selene said.

“
Yeah, Xavier and Javy said that they did a number on you all,” Danny said.

“
OK, so we know that we can pull off a raid as long as we're well coordinated. We've forced Ragnarok into a defensive position. What's our next move from here?” Zach asked.

“
We're going to let the main forces take over responsibilities in the north,” Anna said. “Our concern is in the south.”

“
How close are we to Indianapolis?” Nora asked.

“
Distance wise? We're very close,” Anna said. “We've taken all of the towns and outposts between there and Lerna. If you're talking about how close we are to actually being able to take Indianapolis, we're a long way out.”

“
How long are you talking?” Danny asked.

“
At least two months,” Liz said. “Maybe even more.”

That certainly wasn't good. That would give Ragnarok enough time to recover and replenish their supplies. There was also no guarantee that they would be able to take the city even after two months. They would still suffer attrition against Ragnarok, and they had no idea what they were facing inside the walls. She voiced as much to the others.

“First we have to scout the place, and that might be difficult,” Anna said. “If you think our walls are formidable, the ones around Indianapolis are even stronger. They're at least twenty feet high, and they're pretty thick as well.”

“
Do we even have anything that could damage them?” Nora asked.

Anna shook her head. “We might as well be throwing rocks at them at this point.”

“Could we use the helicopters to get inside the walls?” Danny asked.

“
That's assuming the garrison doesn't have antiaircraft guns,” Zach said. “And considering the size of the city the garrison has to be pretty large. Even if we bring in half the company we would need to immediately take a gate and pour in resources. And we'd have no margin for error.”

“
This is sounding an awful lot like the slaughters from the World Wars,” Nora commented.

“
Then the thing that's going to save us is good recon work,” Selene said. “There has to be a way into the city other than bashing down the walls. We just have to be able to find it.”

“
That's going to be extremely dangerous scouting,” Liz said. “It's going to be very tough to get inside the walls, and once we're inside the city is huge. There's going to be a lot of deaths trying to get the information we need.”

“
We'll need that information, though. That's the only way to make up for our lack of numbers,” Selene said.

“
I think we can do it,” Liz shrugged. “But I also think it's going to be very hard.”

“
First things first, we need to have a base to operate out of,” Nora said. “The biggest problem is that we don't have a place to launch our boats from. We haven't pushed far enough east to get to the reservoirs and rivers.”

“
We could take one of the towns on the White River. That would also put our choppers closer to the city,” Anna suggested.

Selene saw Zach frown. “We could do that, but we would have to spend time taking the town,” he said. “That costs us time, and I'm not sure we have enough troops to spare to do it. I've talked to Cody, Bryce and Gina and they want to keep at least a platoon of us up in the north. And they want chopper support as well.”

That was why Robbie wasn't with them right now. His wing of six attack helicopters was providing close air support to a push by the armored cavalry, although their value was much more psychological than physical at this point. In order to minimize the risk from enemy ground fire Robbie had ordered his pilots to fly low and fast when they attacked. Their attack runs could be hit or miss, but having something come out of nowhere to hit you from above was intimidating.

Anna nodded. “Right, and that's a fair point. Ragnarok might have increased security up north, but we should still have some of us operating in small raiding teams. Even if we don't do any real damage it will keep them on their toes.”

“Should we split duties between the north and south?” Zach asked.

Anna ran a hand through her hair and gave a thoughtful look. “Honestly, I think we should split the company in two for now. I'll take two platoons and handle the south, and you take two platoons and handle the north.”

“Who gets what is the next question,” Danny said.

“
No disrespect to Gray, but your platoon had the better fighters,” Anna said to Liz. “I think you should be in the north.”

Zach made his own thoughtful look. “I'll put Danny in the north with me and have Selene handle the south.”

“Any reason why?” Danny asked.

“
Have you watched yourself trying to sneak around?” Zach asked.

Danny laughed. “Fair point. And tangling with Ragnarok's best sounds like it would be a whole lot of fun.”

Selene was pleased with her assignment as well. Taking a city had been their top priority for months. The idea had predated the formation of the Hydra Alliance, in fact, and now it was finally in reach, distant as that might be. She wanted it to happen, and was now in a position to help push the process along.

Not that there weren't going to be any challenges. There were, and they were going to be rough. As Anna had already mentioned, the city was surrounded by walls, except for some of the sides that bordered large bodies of water. That wasn't going to be easy either, because the beaches were probably heavily defended, and they could only bring limited fire support with them. The river craft would be helpful close to shore, but once they moved into the city they had nothing like the backup an assault gun could give them.

The worst part was not knowing the forces that were against them. The NPCs in World at War had varying levels and intelligences. Outside of major settlements they tended to be low level and weak, with only their sheer numbers as a real advantage. The ones inside settlements were better, but they were still far behind the capabilities of even an average player. The only real trump cards they possessed were their bosses, like the armored vehicle they had run into taking Lerna. But reports were that troops from the larger cities were much tougher. They were better armed, fought with better tactics and acted smarter as well.

The one good thing was that they were used to fighting tough troops while they were outnumbered. The problem was that they had never tried to attack a fortress with numerous, tough troops.

This was going to be difficult, Selene realized.

Knock, knock.

“
Selene, it's 4:30,” Miko's voice said, muffled by the door and her sleepy haze.

“
I'm up,” she groaned back. They were supposed to meet Nora, Anna and Liz in an hour, and she had napped longer than she had planned on. She rolled out of bed, stretched and got dressed.

“
How long were you on last night?” Miko asked as she exited her room.

“
Till around one,” Selene told her. “There was a lot of organizational stuff that needed to be done, and then I decided that I wanted to do a little bit of hunting.”

“
In the forest in the middle of the night? By yourself?” Miko asked.

“
It was pretty fun,” Selene said. “I got a pair of fen wolves.”

“
How many times did you die before then?” Miko asked.

“
I didn't,” Selene said.

“
Lucky break for you,” Miko shrugged. “Ready to go?”

Selene headed toward the door and grabbed her jacket. “Let's go.”

“
Have fun hunting last night?” Anna asked as Selene and Miko took a seat at the table. Nora and Liz were already there as well.

“
Tons,” Selene said.

“
I'm honestly surprised that you didn't die a bunch of times,” Miko said.

“
I told her she was crazy, but she insisted,” Liz said.

Selene nodded. “Not going to disagree with you there. But we've spent so much time going through all the bureaucracy and organization that it sometimes seems liked we've taken some of the fun out of the whole thing. Running through the woods in the middle of the night with a half dozen wolves chasing me just felt thrilling, you know?”

“Well, this is also our job,” Nora said.

Selene laughed. “I definitely can't complain about that.”

“How does that work, being paid to study the game?” Anna asked.

Selene leaned back in her chair. “Well, there's a lot of stuff that goes on. Most of our time is spent playing, but we also do a lot of interviews with the head of the whole research project. They're very big on societies in the game world and the like.”

“What, the collection of warlords and armed gangs?” Liz said. “I mean, we might technically be a cartel, but the point's still the same.”

“
They seem to have much higher opinion about our motives than we do,” Nora agreed. “I think you're spot on. We're basically just heavily armed gangs fighting it out in a game world.”

“
Put that way it sounds pretty bad,” Anna said.

“
Maybe not,” Miko said. “It's not like it's a psychopath training simulator. It's probably nothing more than just a very realistic power fantasy. I have to admit, assassinating people is a lot of fun, but it's not like I'm going to start hunting down people in the real world.”

“
You know some idiot pundit is going to go on a diatribe about how the whole thing is a brainwashing tool and is turning us into mindless killers,” Nora said.

“
With the charts and flawed research and all?” Selene added.

“
Not to mention ignoring all the research that contradicts it,” Anna said with a hint of annoyance in her voice.

“
Sore topic?” Selene asked her.

“
It's just a pet peeve of mine,” Anna said. “People using flawed methodology really, really annoys me. Plus, a lot of people tend to believe what they're told, even if it's stretching the truth.”

“
I feel you,” Selene said. That made sense. Anna was a research assistant who had majored in psychology.

“
As much as I hate to say it, some people might have a point, though,” Nora said. “It's not nearly as extreme as people make it out to be, but I do think the game affects us in subtle ways. I've noticed that my reaction times have gotten a lot faster.”

“
But we're not all psychos because of the game,” Selene said. “It's just a place where we can go to have fun.”

“
Oh, I definitely think that's true,” Nora agreed. “I talked about it a lot with Zach. I think that the game is influencing us neurologically. But I think that the amount it influences us psychologically is affected by how well anchored we are in the real world.”

“
So you think we're just fine as is?” Miko asked.

Nora nodded. “Yeah. I think that it only really affects people who already have a tenuous grip on reality. The vast majority of people are fine.”

“Makes sense,” Liz said.

“
Then again, we're dealing with uncharted territory here,” Anna said. “What you said supports the prevailing theory about games. Heck, I'd go as far as to say that it's proven fact at this point. But then again, there's not a lot of data on true virtual reality games. And there's no data on a virtual world game.”