Werewolf: A World at War Novel (World at War Online Book 4) (14 page)

Nora jogged over to her exoskeleton and climbed in, then closed the hatch. The systems booted up after a few seconds. She flexed her limbs to make sure everything was in working order.

“Hoplites, report in.”

“Hoplite 2.”

“Hoplite 3.”

“Hoplite 4.”

“Hoplite 5.”

Nora turned her suit toward the south. “Let's move!”

“And so it begins,” Zach commented.

“Hopefully it's nothing too tough,” Anna said.

“I'm pretty sure that nothing's going to top the Lerna Bastion boss. Or the one in Eagle Creek,” Zach said. “Or, the boss might be as tough, but we're more experienced and better equipped.”

“Fine, go ahead and tempt fate,” Anna said with a slight smile.

“Oh, come on. It's not a fight until we have to come up with some crazy solution on the fly,” Zach said. “Where's the fun in having everything go right?”

“I hope you're joking.”

“I am. Mostly. But looking back, it was a lot of fun trying to come up with solutions in the middle of the battle. Even if it didn't feel that way at the time.”

Anna looked back down at the map. “OK, so Barghest and Bravo Wolf have achieved the breakthrough. Hoplite is following them, and Thorn Company is headed south as well. Alpha Wolf and Redd Foxx should be able to push through to the east. Spectre and Myrmidon are clearing out the walls. Raven is covering us from above. All in all, it's going pretty smoothly. Pending the boss, of course.”

“This seems like it's too easy,” Zach said.

“Again, tempting fate by saying things like that out loud,” Anna cautioned.

“Don't say that you're not thinking about it as well,” Zach replied.

“OK, maybe a little. But I wasn't going to say anything out loud.”

“But you feel it.”

“Yeah,” Anna confirmed. “But maybe we're looking at it the wrong way.”

“Hmm?”

“Like you said, we're more experienced and better equipped. Maybe there isn't something waiting to lower the boom on us. Maybe we're fighting the best the enemy has to offer, but we're too good.”

Zach frowned. “Then have we broken the game? There's not much point in fighting if there's no challenge.”

“Well, we don't know what other places have to offer,” Anna said. “Plus, this is for NPCs. Human players are a whole different matter.”

Zach nodded. No matter how sophisticated an AI became, it still couldn't match the ability of the human mind, let alone a collection of them. And fighting Ragnarok was where the real challenge of the game lay.

Still, it was best not to underestimate the challenge before them. One wrong step, and they would be in serious trouble.

“We're at the capture point,” Danny communicated to the rest of the battalion. “Hopefully the boss will show itself soon.”

“Little eager to die,” Xavier said beside him.

Danny looked his way. “Oh, come on. We'll be fine.”

“Could you not say things like that when you're standing next to me?”

He laughed. “What, afraid my bad mojo is going to get you as well?”

“I'd rather not chance it,” Xavier shrugged.

“Man, none of you are any fun at all,” Danny complained lightly. “It hasn't even shown up yet.”

Xavier pointed at something in front of them. “Speak of the devil.”

Danny looked in that direction, then starred more intently. An enemy vehicle was moving down the street. It was tracked, and it had a turreted main gun. The armor looked thick as well.

Danny activated his radio. “Command, we have a tank in the area. I say again, we have a tank in the area. It looks heavier and better armed than the Ragnarok models.”

“Copy that,” Anna replied over the radio. “We'll spread the word.”

Xavier tapped him on the shoulder. “Not just one,” he said.

Danny took another look. Sure enough, there were two more tanks advancing down the wide street in front of them.

“Command, we have three tanks in the area. I say again, three tanks.”

“OK, that changes things a bit,” Anna said.

He had to agree. One tank wasn't going to be much of a problem. They had the weaponry to hit it from the top, side or rear and kill it. But three tanks was an entirely different story. The vehicles could cover each other, and they could kill most of his platoon in one well-aimed salvo.

“Bravo Wolf, you there?”

Danny snapped out of his thoughts and answered. “I'm here, Hoplite Lead. Trying to figure out how we want to deal with the enemy tanks.”

“We can distract them,” Nora replied.

“I don't think you have the firepower to hurt them,” Danny told her. “Their armor looks pretty thick.”

“We might not be able to harm them,” Nora said, “but we can get their attention. That'll give you and Karen the opening to go after them with recoilless rifles.”

“That's risky.”

“Less risky for us than it is for you. We have better mobility, and better protection. I'm assuming they have machine guns on them, right?”

Danny looked. “Yeah, they have machine guns.”

“They won't do anything to our suits,” Nora said. “They'll kill your guys. So using us as bait is probably the safer option.”

“We're also going to have to deal with the horde of infantry that's going to spawn right now,” Danny replied. “You might be better off doing that.”

“We have others to take care of that,” Nora replied. “Or did you completely forget about the eastern part of the attack?”

“I remembered,” Danny said. “But the enemy needs to attack them instead of us.”

“I don't think that Selene and Liz are going to give them a choice,” Nora said. Danny thought he heard a smile in her voice.

He smiled as well. “Well, you're right about that.”

Like fish in a barrel. Selene aimed down her sights and gunned down another enemy soldier below.

Crack!

Miko's rifle barked. She had returned to them after none of the other units needed her help, and was making her presence felt.

Selene toggled her radio. “Liz, there's another squad that's going to come into your field of view in about five seconds.”

“Copy that, Alpha Wolf,” Liz replied. Sure enough, Redd Foxx opened fire about five seconds later and scythed down even more enemy troops.

Selene had positioned herself in a five story building that had a commanding view of the rest of the streets. From here, she could see every movement for several blocks. It was a good thing too; the enemy was starting to appear in huge numbers, and they might be overwhelmed.

“There's a couple platoons moving toward us,” Miko warned from her vantage point.

“Are they going to cross Redd Foxx's killzone?” Selene asked.

“Doesn't look like it, and it'll probably be bad if the manage to close with us.”

Selene nodded. “OK, I'll get on it.” She contacted Blake. “Raven 2, we have a couple of enemy platoons moving in on our position. Can you do something about it?”

“Can you be more specific?” Blake asked.

“I'll have Lone Wolf send you the coordinates,” she said.

“Sure, make me do all the hard work,” Miko commented from behind her.

“OK, we have them,” Blake replied after a few seconds. “We'll deal with them now.”

“Thanks.”

There was a pause. “Whew, there's a lot of them down there. Definitely a multi-team effort. I'm going to use four choppers.”

“Do whatever you need to do,” Selene told him.

“OK, but this'll draw the support away from other sections for a couple of minutes.”

“This is most important,” Selene told him.

“Right. Raven 2, out.”

Selene joined Miko and looked out the window, waiting for the fireworks to commence. She didn't have long to wait. Two choppers swooped it, miniguns spewing a torrent of lead. Two more followed behind, spitting death from their own weapons.

She activated her radio. “Alpha Wolf, don't let up!”

They would tie down the enemy garrison. The boss was the rest of Black Wolf's hands.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

Nora fired off a trio of shots from her autocannon. Sure enough, they bounced off the turret of the enemy tank with nary a scratch.

It did have one effect, however. The turret turned and the tank's main gun barked. But by then she was long gone from her original spot.

Nora made a smooth landing from her leap and jogged to another position, trying to keep the enemy tank busy. Javy's squad was trying to get in position to the left of the tank, and she didn't want anything to happen to them.

And so, here she was, firing off useless shots at the enemy boss, hoping they weren't exceptionally skilled or lucky. If they were, she was dead meat. The Hoplite pattern exoskeleton provided excellent protection, but it couldn't stand up to the main gun of a tank.

The tank fired again. Nora made a quick dodge to the right, baiting the turret to turn in her direction. If she could do it, then the tank would have no way to defend itself from an attack coming from its right flank. Javy's squad could stroll up to it with grenades.

“Javy, where are you at?” Nora asked.

“Almost there,” he replied.

“How much longer?” she asked. Nora was confident in her abilities, but she didn't want to press her luck.

“Colin's loading now. Just a few more seconds.”

Nora didn't respond; she was too busy dodging the next shell. It missed as well, but it passed much closer than she would have liked.

“Any time now would be good,” Nora said.

“One second,” Javy said.

Nora prepared for the next shot. It never came. A recoilless rifle shell came streaking off the top of a building and slammed into the side of the tank, right between the turret and the hull. The explosion tore the turret clean off its mount and sent it flying toward her.

She nimbly leaped aside as the turret slammed into the ground beside her.

“That was close,” she commented. “Good kill.”

The hull of the second tank laying burning, dead from a recoilless rifle round. Two down, one to go.

But the last one was going to give them the most trouble. Enemy infantry had moved in to support it, making it dangerous for anti-tank teams to close the distance.

Danny tried his best to coordinate the actions of everyone. Justin and Terra attacked the tank, hitting it with autocannon shells to hold its attention. Meanwhile, he lead a squad trying to suppress the tank's infantry cover. Ryan would lead the assault on the tank itself.

Bullets forced him to duck back behind a brick wall. The enemy infantry wasn't going down without a bitter fight. They had at least a platoon, probably more, and Danny wasn't certain his squad could suppress them all. There were simply too many to deal with.

They had to try, though. If they couldn't, there was no way that Ryan's squad would get anywhere close to the tank, and that was their only way to kill it.

Danny activated his radio. “Bravo Wolf, keep laying it on them, and don't let up.”

“Danny, there's another platoon moving in toward the tank,” Xavier called from up top.

“Want us to engage them?” Justin asked.

“No, you need to keep the tank distracted,” Danny said.

“We can call the others for support,” Terra said.

“I'll do it. Keep the boss busy until they get here.”

He leaned over the wall and fired off a burst, then activated his radio again.

“Hoplite Lead, are you there?”

Nora responded after a few seconds. “I'm here.”

“We're getting crunched,” he replied. “Can you-”

“Already on it,” she cut him off.

“You didn't even hear what I-” Danny began, but then the sound of minigun fire tore through the air.

He looked up over the wall and saw garrison troops falling in droves. One exoskeleton advanced from the west, followed by another. A third one pushed in from the south. The enemy reeled.

“Good timing,” Danny told Nora.

“I thought you might like it,” Nora replied, her voice crackling over the radio.

But that still left the tank. It aimed its main gun at one of the exoskeletons and fired. For one awful moment, Danny thought the unit was dead.

That was, until it skipped nimbly to one side. The shell flew past and slammed into the face of a building. Masonry flew everywhere, but the suit itself was unharmed.

“Pay attention, Max,” Danny heard Nora say over the radio.

He contacted Ryan. “Are you in position yet?”