Howl: A World at War Novel (9 page)

But then why did they choose to make a global war game? That was possibly the most complicated option out of any they could chose. The risk if it failed was immense. There was no danger of that now; World at War had millions of subscribers. However, the sheer amount of things that could have gone wrong boggled the mind.

Maybe they had someone on the outside lobbying for it to be this way. The money needed to develop the game was astronomical, enough that it was speculated that it would bankrupt the company if World at War failed. Maybe someone had offered to offset the financial risk if the game was built to their tastes. Who would it have been, though? An eccentric billionaire? The government? The military? Someone else?

Sometimes Danny wondered just what he had gotten himself into when he signed the paperwork agreeing to the study.

“Bravo 1, Bravo 1, how's it going on your end?” Danny lifted his machine gun up and fired burst after burst at the enemy. He was with Javy's squad fighting through the last area of a group NPC quest. The enemy had the outnumbered five to one, and were getting absolutely slaughtered. It wasn't even a battle; it was like mowing down grass. They had thought the enemy AI outside of Old Chicago was shoddy at times, but this was even worse. Was it that bad, or were they that good?

Xavier's voice crackled over the radio. “This is too easy,” he said. “We're fighting through a platoon, but they're not even coming close to doing anything to us.”

“This is really going to skew the kill counts in our favor,” Javy said. “I mean, I know they're just for bragging rights, but still.”

Danny laughed to himself. There was a kill counter on his HUD for the duration of this mission. His was well over twenty by now. None of them had even been seriously wounded, let alone killed. And it wasn't like they were all that heavily armed. They had no air support, no armored vehicles, no artillery, and few weapons heavier than machine guns. They were right. They had run the game so far off the rails that many important elements were now obsolete.

Danny shifted his aim and fired another burst. He watched Javy's squad push forward, gunning down anyone who got them in the way. He was curious about what kind of schematic would be their reward for the mission. It couldn't be that good, since the mission was so easy. On the other hand the amount of technology they had to produce was putting a severe strain on Hephaestus Company. Simpler weapons and equipment could be helpful as well, and would put far less strain on their production system.

“
Danny, I think we have the area cleared,” Javy said. The gunfire had died out.

He stood up and looked around. There were enemies strewn everywhere. “Man, we stomped them.”

Javy and Ryan came walking up to him. “Man, I got fifteen kills out of that,” Javy commented with a grin. That was definitely unusual, since he was a medic.

“
How many did you get?” Danny asked Ryan.

“
Thirty two,” Ryan said. “Not that it's hard when they pop up in predictable patterns.”

Javy shrugged. “I see how this would be tough for new players. If you're attacking this with a couple of raw squads you run into this at the end and have a company of enemies firing at you. That would be pretty intimidating.”

“But we're too well trained to be bothered by it,” Ryan said. “I'm actually kind of glad that Karen didn't come along. We'd have to divide up the experience even further, and it's low enough as it is.”

Karen had taken her squad and was trying to complete the second level of the ranger challenge. Danny admired their enthusiasm, especially since it was only for bragging rights at the moment. There was no way he would be able to do it right now. Their original squad couldn't get together since they were all busy elsewhere. Danny could join another squad, but he felt like he was going to be a liability. Even though Liz was continuing to train him when they had time, he was still merely passable at it.

Xavier buzzed in. “We're going to go turn in the quest and get the reward. Want to come along?”

Danny looked at the other two. They shrugged.

“Go turn it in and meet up with us at the battledome. We'll join up with Karen and head south together.”

“
Copy that,” Xavier said. “We'll let you know what we got once we turn it in.”

“
Great.” Danny turned to Javy. “Let's go.”

“Well, this is better than I thought it would be,” Danny commented. The schematic they had earned needed to be decoded by an engineer. Leigh had done so on their way back down to Lerna Bastion.

Black Wolf Headquarters was deserted except for Danny's platoon. Zach was up north with Liz and her platoon, Selene was down in the south scouting and Nora was doing something with Anna. So far it was only Leigh, Ryan, Xavier, Javy and Karen in the briefing room going over the schematic. Yusuf was busy, but Paige was coming over to meet with them and to take the schematic to Hephaestus Forge.

The schematic was for a heavy machine gun firing .50 caliber bullets. It was too large to be carried by a single heavy, and would need to be operated by a crew. On the other hand, it would allow them to bring some heavier firepower to the battlefield. It probably could be mounted on vehicles and on the wall defenses as well. It might not be a flashy weapon, but it was plenty useful.

“
So, we need two people to operate this?” Xavier asked.

“
The person firing has to be a heavy, unless it's mounted on a vehicle or in a fixed position,” Leigh said.

“
Wait, how does that make sense?” Ryan wondered aloud.

Leigh shrugged her shoulders. “Don't ask me, ask the people who designed this game.”

Karen frowned. “I don't think this is going to be good in the standard squad. We might want to form dedicated heavy weapons squads armed with just these.”

“
Do we have the troops for this?” Xavier asked. “Our platoons could stand to be bigger now as it is. We don't want to dilute our front line fighting strength any more than it has to.”

Danny nodded. “Plus, we're light infantry. I think this is going to be more useful for the infantry companies. It'll be good for our river craft and choppers, though.”

Javy and Ryan looked up from across the table. Danny turned around to see Paige entering the briefing room. “Hi everyone,” she said. “So, you have a new schematic?”

Leigh opened up her menu and sent Paige the details. “Yeah, here it is. What do you think?”

Paige opened up the message and quickly read through it. “Looks simple enough. It's just another gun, and we produce plenty of those. Once we convert a line to producing this and one of the ammo lines to producing bullets we should be fine. And it's not like it's going to be hard to mount on a vehicle. Most of them had modular weapons mounts, so it's really just a matter of bolting it on. I imagine you want them on soon.”

“
Have you heard the news, then?” Danny asked.

“
That you're going after another schematic? Yup, I heard that, and I imagine you want the best weapons you can get your hands on,” Paige said. “We'll do our best to make sure that happens.”

“
The scout force is going to need them as well,” Karen said.

Danny agreed. As hard as their mission was, how tough their opponents were, it was nothing more than a sideshow. They were buying time for the scout force to do their jobs in the south.

And their job was going to be tough indeed.

CHAPTER 9

Cruise

“Wolf 2, what's your status?”

Nora glanced out over the dark water before she responded. “It looks like we're clear, Fox Lead. I haven't heard anything from Alpha 1 or Gray 1. Haven't heard any gunfire either, so it sounds like we're pretty safe.”

“Copy that, Wolf 2,” Anna said. “Fox Lead out.”

Nora turned to the boat's pilot, Eli. “Keep your distance. We don't want to get lit up by the shore guns.”

“Got it,” Eli confirmed.

Nora went back to looking over the city with her night scope. She and Anna had devised their scouting plan for the city. They had deemed it far too risky to use their helicopters until they were completely sure that there weren't any antiaircraft guns where they were flying. Instead, they had set up a small base on the far side of a reservoir to the west of the city. This allowed them to use their river craft to reach parts of the city not guarded by walls. From there they could spread out and scout the rest of the city.

It was dangerous work, though. The waterfront was heavily guarded at points, and scouts in the city constantly had to dodge patrols. There were no good options if they were discovered. They could try to fade back into the city, but that was fairly difficult when the garrison was on alert. Fighting wasn't an option, since they were hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned. The only real option was to run for their lives, calling in support from their watercraft and then hightailing it out of there.

Several patrols had been killed, but the scouting would continue. The information they were bringing back was far too valuable. One of the most notable tidbits was the fact that Indianapolis was divided into districts separated by walls. From what they could gather each district of the city had its own capture point.

That was going to be very important for their plans. Instead of having to take the entire city in one sweep, which was going to be extremely hard with the numbers they could bring to bear, they would take it district by district. That way the would have time to rest and replenish their losses. It would also give them a base of operations close by, where they could respawn and restock between battles.

But that was a long way off right now. They had only explored two districts so far, the ones bordering the reservoir, and their intelligence on them was still spotty at best. Even if they had a good idea what was there, taking the place was a whole different matter. Hydra's greatest asset was their armor, and they had no way to get it across the reservoir or through the walls. There was a bridge over the waterway, but to Nora that just looked like it was a deathtrap. Their armored vehicles would be penned in, easy targets for heavy weaponry up on the walls. They didn't have enough boats to get a large enough force over the reservoir, and even it they did they might not have the weaponry to take the district. The few glimpses they had gotten of the enemy indicated that they were heavily armed.

Scouting during the daylight hours was completely out of the question. They had taken to landing their teams once it was dark out and leaving before the sun rose. That didn't leave them a lot of time, since the night cycle in the game was only about six hours. It wasn't like they had any other choice, though, unless they all wanted to be slaughtered.

“
Neptune 1, Neptune 1, come in.”

It was Jana's squad, scouting inside the city. Nora got on the radio with her. In addition to commanding the boat squad on the reservoir she was also acting as their radio operator.

“Gray 1, I hear you. What's up?”

“
We've been spotted. Requesting evac at the designated point,” Jana replied. “We'll be there in two minutes.”

“
Copy that, Gray 1. We're coming.” Nora switched the channel to her squad. “Neptune, head for Point Whiskey for an extract. Don't bother with stealth.”

“
Roger,” came the confirmation from the rest of the crews. They were a hodgepodge, made up of various members from Raven, Black Wolf and Redd Foxx. The boat pilots were both from Raven Company, though the guns were manned by anyone that was available. They were effective as a team, at least, and they didn't have the luxury of being picky anyhow.

Eli skillfully wheeled the boat around and sped off toward the eastern shore. Nora made sure that the machine gun mounted next to her station was ready to fire. She could see dark shapes moving around the rest of the boat loading and preparing weapons. Once they got to the shore they would need every gun they could muster. The only one who wouldn't be firing was the pilot.

“Neptune 1, Neptune 1, we're about thirty seconds out from the extract point,” Jana said.

Nora looked out over the dark water toward the rapidly approaching lights of the city. “We'll be there. Just hold tight.”

Thirty seconds
.

Nora grabbed the handle of her machine gun and cocked the bolt. The craft were heavily armed with machine guns and a recoilless rifle mounted on the bow. It would be enough. It had to be.

Twenty seconds
.

They were going to have to be quick about this. If they weren't then the enemy was going to light them up like a Christmas tree. They had already lost one boat when they had been caught in a withering crossfire.

Ten seconds
.

Nora could see tracers now. A group was huddled behind a mess of crates and junk clustered at the end of a pier. That was going to be their extract point.

And then they were there.

“
Gray 1, go, go!” Nora ordered. Then the night lit up.

It sounded like a half-dozen buzz saws going off at once. Tracers laced into the buildings and cover near the shore. The amount of fire coming from the other side suddenly died down. It wouldn't last, though, and they all knew it. Jana's squad was already sprinting down the pier as fast as their legs could carry them. Nora noticed that there were only seven members.

BAM!

The recoilless rifle on the bow fired, and a second later the face of a building exploded with a brilliant flash. Nora kept firing, trying to do what she could to intimidate the enemy. Or maybe the more accurate way to described it was that she was messing with their programming; she wasn't sure that NPCs could actually be intimidated.

She felt the boat rock as Jana's squad took running leaps and landed on the deck. They were the extract boat; Neptune 2 was providing cover.

“
We're aboard,” Nora heard Jana say over the link and from behind her.

“
Eli, go,” she ordered.

He revved the motor and sped off. Just in time, too, because the enemy on shore had regained their boldness and was laying down heavy fire on them. She didn't have a good angle on them, so she put her gun on safe and stepped away.

“How was it?” Nora asked Jana.

“
Tough. We mapped a good portion of the section, but then we got caught and Vince got it pretty good. We're lucky that he was the only casualty.”

“
You said you mapped it, though?”

Jana nodded. “Oh yeah. We got plenty. Not much for you to see now, but once we get back to base and lay it all out on the overhead map I think it'll make the picture a whole lot clearer.”

Nora certainly hoped so. The sheer amount of area they had to cover was staggering, never mind the fact that it was heavily guarded. They would need time to properly map the entire city, and it was time that they might not have. From what she had heard out of Zach the situation in the north was tougher than expected. Ragnarok was still fighting back, and they were fighting back with their best. It was very uncertain how long their northern forces could buy them.

One step at a time, Nora thought to herself. There was no sense in rushing this, because even if taking too long would be problematic, going off half-cocked would invite an even greater disaster. Hydra would certainly be outnumbered, and possibly outgunned as well. Their only advantage would be intelligence, and they would need that to be near perfect in order to succeed. They would have to keep putting themselves at risk to get it.

They were back at their field headquarters about twenty minutes later. It wasn't much, just a couple of tents, supply dumps and defensive positions. They weren't expecting anything this far south. The largest tent was currently serving as their command post. Nora and Jana headed in that direction as soon as they tied up to the dock.

The camp was relatively quiet. Except for a few guards and the scout teams almost everyone was either logged off or doing other things. Anna, Gray and Selene were here right now, though, and they were going to be the ones planning the operations. If Jana's information was as good as she thought it was then they would be able to make much more concrete plans.

“
Heard that you guys ran into trouble,” Anna said to them as they entered the command post. It was sparsely furnished save for a map table and several large radio sets meant to boost the range of their personal sets.

“
Yeah, that wasn't too pretty. We're going to have to take these kinds of risks if we want this operation to succeed,” Jana said. “At least Liz isn't going to get trapped on a roof like last time.”

Anna laughed. “Right, and I bet she's glad for that. Get your info on the map and I'll get Gray and Selene in here.”

Nora watched as Jana started to input the information from her wrist menu into the map table. That was the one notable thing about their HQ here; they had a holographic map table. Hydra had a total of two of them. One of them was here and the other was in their headquarters at Lerna Bastion. They were much easier to use than a paper map, and could track troop movements in real time as well. The problem was that they were obscenely expensive, and they hadn't been able to afford one until recently. This one had been paid for by all of the overdrive they had stolen during Robber Baron.

“
Alright, we're here,” Gray said as he entered the tent with Selene close behind. He was a sniper, though unlike most he was tailored to fight at closer ranges, laying down fast and accurate fire on the enemy. Gray couldn't match a ranged sniper like Miko or Jonas in a one-on-one fight at long range, but his skills were extremely valuable as part of a squad.

“
So, what have you got for us?” Selene asked.

“
Well, we managed to scout the back end of some of the walls,” Jana said.

“
Has anyone told you that's you're completely insane?” Selene said with a bit of admiration evident in her voice. “How did you manage to avoid that many guards? I know you guys are good, but wow.”

“
We were careful,” Jana said. “And then we got caught and had to run for it.”

“
Bet that was fun,” Gray said dryly. “For both of you, I should think.”

“
Well, it certainly got the blood pumping,” Nora said. “I've missed being part of the action, so it felt good to go out there and fight.”

“
Combat withdrawal?” Gray laughed.

Nora nodded. “Yeah, you might say that.”

Anna got them back on topic. “Back to the issue of the walls. What can you tell us about them?” she asked Jana.

Jana opened up the map table's menu and zoomed in on a section of the map. She rotated the view so they could see topographical features. The holographic images of the walls rose up like a diorama. “The walls are about twenty feet high and are thick. Really thick.”

“How thick?” Anna asked.

“
Not entirely sure. We couldn't get on them to measure, but they're big. I'd say at least twenty to thirty feet thick.”

“
That's completely insane,” Nora said.

Selene shrugged. “Well, unless we find a schematic for one of those massive railway guns we're not going to be able to knock them down no matter what we throw at them.”

Jana zoomed in further on another section. “It gets worse. From our vantage point it looked like there was artillery mounted on the wall. It's at least out in the open, so that's something.”

“
How big?” Gray asked.

“
Again, it was dark out, so I have no idea.”

“
We haven't been fired on by any artillery,” Nora commented. “Does that mean it can only fire toward the north?”

“
Or maybe they don't deem us as a significant threat,” Selene said. “Maybe the AI commander believes that ground troops can handle small scouting parties just fine.”

Well, it's not wrong if that's the case,” Jana said. “Those guards are really, really nasty. I don't even want to think about what kind of boss we'll have to fight off.”

Nora ran a hand through her hair as she looked over the projection of the wall. “I think we're going to have to risk one of our choppers in an overflight,” she said. “We're getting nowhere, and that's going to hurt us badly. We're starting to run short on time.”

“
Do we know if there's antiaircraft guns in the city?” Selene asked.