Werewolf: A World at War Novel (World at War Online Book 4) (16 page)

“I never received any directions like that,” Evy replied defensively.

Anna shrugged. “That wasn't meant to be accusatory. There was a miscommunication, and we didn't do what we need to. It happens, and we live through it. I'd just like to fix it now before it causes any trouble later. So, were the orders not clear?”

“Your orders were to secure the western flank against an enemy counterattack,” Evy said. “Which we did.”

“I meant the bridges by that,” Anna said. “Guarding the western flank includes guarding it from attacks coming across the river.”

Karen spoke up. “Still, those orders were kind of ambiguous. I can't really fault her for getting them mixed up.”

“Doesn't help that neither company has really worked with us before,” Zach added. “I mean, I know how to read the subtext of your orders because I've been working with you for so long, but they definitely wouldn't.”

“OK, so I need to clarify things more when I give orders,” Anna said. “I'll take it under advisement to make sure nothing like this happens again.”

“It won't,” Lex said quickly. “We'll do our part.”

“I know you will,” Anna answered him. “And this falls on the rest of us as well. Troops can't perform if they don't have clear orders to follow. It's my job to make sure that it happens, and I didn't do it as well as I could have today.”

“So, back to the point of this meeting?” Neil suggested. “Otherwise, what are we standing around here for? There's a ton of work to be done.”

“I agree,” Karen said. “We need a resupply pretty soon, or we'll run of of ammunition in the next fight.”

“We're trying to determine how we want to divide up the district, that's all,” Lex said. “We'll divide up the buildings between our companies and your alliance.”

“We don't need much,” Anna said. “We need a stronghold building for each company, and a central building for the alliance itself. I'd also like to have some waterfront and an industrial building or two for resupply, but that's up to you. And I'd like to have the strongholds near the south wall, but again, that's up to you.”

“You played a major part taking this city,” Lex said. “I think that you should have some say in how it's divided up. It's only fair, after all.”

“But this is your city,” Zach pointed out. “We're just using it as a base to launch attacks on Ragnarok. Our real strongholds are in Indianapolis, so we're not going to cause arguments about the ones up here in the middle of nowhere.”

“Again, I'll state our preferences,” Anna told them. “But the decision is yours, and we'll stick to it. With a few exceptions, of course.”

Evy asked the obvious question. “Those exceptions being?”

“Well, the waterfront is one. We need to make sure we have a working dockyard so we can get supplies from the south. We need an airfield, too, for the choppers. And we'll need a small industrial sector, at least. Otherwise, Hephaestus is here for nothing.”

“And I'd rather we didn't waste our time up here,” Paige said. “We want to be doing something useful that helps this front. Otherwise, we could be in the south.”

“OK, I'll definitely follow your lead on those areas,” Lex said. “You do have a lot more experience doing these things.”

“But we want to keep our independence,” Evy said. “We don't want to become just a puppet of Hydra.”

Anna nodded. “Oh yeah, I understand. And it isn't uncharted territory for us, either. We have plenty of experience working with an outside alliance. We've done several joint operations with Ronin Company.”

“Also, keep in mind that our main goal is to keep Ragnarok busy up here,” Zach said. “And we really don't care how we do it. If we don't get anything out of this besides that, it's fine.”

“Anyhow, it leaves an alliance with a strong position on their northern flank,” Karen said, “and they can't ignore that. Neither can a lot of people in Old Chicago.”

“Yeah, who knows? You might end up leading your own alliance, given time,” Zach said.

Lex nodded. “Well, I wouldn't hate that.”

Anna spoke up. “That's in the future. Here and now, our job is simple. We find the enemy. We kill them. Then we fade into the shadows.”

“Like ghosts,” Neil said with a smile.

Zach couldn't help smiling himself. He could feel the energy crackling through the room. Ghost Battalion would walk into their enemy's back yard and punch them straight in the mouth.

And they were going to enjoy every second of it.

“Another one down,” Zach said. The group had gathered at Selene and Miko's apartment for pizza to celebrate their victory.

“We haven't even started yet, even,” Gavin said, grabbing another slice out of the box. “There's a whole lot of fun waiting for us.”

“A whole lot of action as well,” Miko added. “I don't think they're going to be too happy to see us.”

“And there's a big mess of things to untangle in the process,” Nora said.

Zach shrugged. “Well, we can deal with that later. We won, and I'm just going to be happy about that tonight.”

Danny raised his glass. “I'll drink to that.”

Everyone joined him. And Zach couldn't help the smile spreading across his face.

CHAPTER 13

Hunters

The enemy never knew what hit them.

A patrol of Ragnarok troops advanced through the thick forest. It was large, with about thirty members. That was more than enough to win most firefights decisively, and they seemed confident. However, the brush and undergrowth forced them to stay relatively close to the path and restricted them to a small area.

They weren't stupid. The patrol commander was clearly experienced, because the Ragnarok troops advanced carefully with a quartet of scouts on point, probably their most veteran troops. The rest stayed alert, scanning everywhere for signs of an ambush.

But there were plenty of places to hide in the forest.

The last soldier in the patrol fell forward, an arrow sticking between her shoulder blades. Her comrade in front turned around when he heard her fall, then turned to shout a warning. Another arrow caught him straight in the throat.

One of the troopers shouted, alerted to the ambush. The patrol scrambled off the path, trying to get behind cover. An assault fell to another arrow shot. Then the guns opened fire.

Bullets tore into the Ragnarok troops, killing and maiming several. There was no place to go quickly, and at least six or seven fell to the hail of lead coming from the rear. The rest fell back in confusion, heading for cover. There was a dried up creek bed that would provide them with good protection from the onslaught. Most of them made it, though two more fell to the guns.

But then the creek bed exploded.

Danny grinned and looked down his sights. “Nice plan, Zach.”

“Thanks,” came the reply over the radio. “I thought it might work.”

Zach had planted explosive charges along the face of the creek bed, augmented by bags of nails, scrap metal and glass. When attached to a remote detonator, they made fearsome improvised claymore mines.

The carnage in the creek bed was evident, though some of the Ragnarok troops looked like they were still alive. Danny wasn't going to give them an opportunity to do that for much longer.

He pulled the trigger and raked the creek bed with machine gun fire. Beside him Gavin, Javy and Will added their own firepower to the mix. More bullets came scything in from the left, compliments of Zach's team of Xavier and Gwen.

An engineer in the creek bed managed to get to her feet, priming her grenade launcher. Danny tried to shift his aim, but he wasn't quite fast enough. The engineer flopped over like she had been hit in the head with a sledgehammer.

“Nice shot, Miko,” Danny said.

“My pleasure.”

Danny raked the creek bed again for good measure, though by this time he was certain everything in it was dead.

“Cease fire,” Zach ordered, apparently thinking the same thing.

“Advance?” Danny asked him.

Zach answered over the radio link. “Yeah, let's go see our work. Liz? We're moving up. You can come join us if you want. Don't shoot us, at least.”

“Gosh, do you really have to tell me that?” she replied.

“Just in case, I mean.”

“How the heck am I going to shoot you when I can't even see you?”

“OK, fine. Forget I said anything,” Zach replied.

Danny laughed as he walked. “You never know when an arrow will come flying out of nowhere, especially with you around.”

“Just because you seem to be the victim most of the time,” Liz teased him.

“Not lately,” Danny said.

“Haven't had much time to go to the battledomes, huh?” Selene commented.

“That's because my stealth skills are pretty good right now,” Danny retorted.

“Well, I wouldn't quite say that,” Liz told him. “They're decent, at least.”

“Gee, thanks,” Danny said, though in truth he knew his skills were on the low end of the scale.

At least they were much better than when he had started. Danny was completely hopeless trying to sneak. Part of it was due to him being a heavy, and part of it was his own problems. He wasn't exactly light on his feet in the real world, either.

He had learned, though. Liz had started training him in the battledomes of Old Chicago, and had promptly thrown him off the deep end, so to speak. She had challenged him to one on one fights, matching her stealth skills against his. Danny had lost, and he had lost frequently and embarrassingly. But slowly, he had improved.

Not that losing to Liz all those times was something to be ashamed of. She was one of the founding members of Redd Foxx Company, and one of their best stealth operators as well. The fact that he had manged to get her twice was a great source of pride for him.

Of course, she had over two hundred kills on him. Half of them were by knife. The other half were from the weapon that had now become her trademark, the bow.

In fact, most of her skill had been acquired at his expense. Besides training him, Liz had also taken the time to hone her own skills with her newly acquired bow. Danny wasn't sure about being used as moving target practice, but he couldn't argue with the results. Liz had become very, very good with the weapon, and it was especially invaluable for ambushes.

Danny met up with Zach's team in the creek bed. Sure enough, there were no survivors. The explosives had done their job, and bullets had finished off the rest.

“Well, our intel was good, at least,” Gavin commented. “Though Thorn Company would be in serious trouble if they ran into a unit this size.”

“Probably helps that Ragnarok still thinks they're dealing with small underarmed raiding units,” Will said.

“Which is still somewhat true,” Danny said.

“Except the most important part. We're
heavily armed
small raiding units, and it looks like we're dealing with the rookies again,” Gwen pointed out.

“I thought the scouts were veterans,” Danny said. “They seemed to know what they're doing. Plus, it looks like they were commanded reasonably well.”

Gwen nodded. “Right. But the troops still panicked when they came under fire from the rear. Not as badly as some other times, and it looks like their leaders managed to steady them, but they did panic a bit.”

Javy poked one of the bodies with his boot. “So rookies again?”

“Makes sense,” Will shrugged. “It gets them experience in a backwater area. Would you really want to put your green troops up against Sacred Sword or Crimson Eagle?”

“So they protect their rear areas from raiders and get their inexperienced troops some action to toughen them up,” Zach said from his end of the creek. “Must be nice to have that kind of numbers.”

“Barghest Company worked out fine,” Miko said.

Zach nodded. “Yeah, it did. But it could have ended pretty badly as well, and I'd rather be able to do something like this. It just seems much more efficient.”

“Until some jerk decides to come in from behind and sucker punch you,” Danny grinned.

Zach laughed back. “Yeah, there's that. I guess they're going to get a lot of schooling in how warfare works in this game.”

“And for our part, we need to keep them off balance,” Liz said as she walked up with Selene and Nora in tow.

“Well, they definitely know we're here,” Selene said. “Unless they lost all sense and forgot to check the kill statistics.”

That was one major disadvantage. The kill tracking system told players who had killed them last, which meant Ragnarok would know Hydra was operating in the area. What they didn't know was where they were operating from, and that was their trump card.

The area between Green Bay and Madison was wild, filled with expansive swamps and dense forests. Lakes and rivers sprawled throughout the landscape. Roads were almost nonexistent, and predators lurked around every corner. Moving a conventional force was difficult, if not impossible.

But Ghost Battalion was nowhere near conventional. They were the most mobile force in the Hydra Alliance, and they could use every one of their skills here. The light infantry excelled in the rough terrain, and was able to cross areas where others wouldn't dare. They had experience dealing with vicious fauna, and could survive the harsh ecosystem. If they need to move faster they could ride their river craft, using the huge system of lakes and rivers as transportation routes. And they could deploy from their transport choppers almost anywhere.

“Think they'll send special forces after us?” Xavier asked.

“The Valkyries?” Zach asked.

“Well, that's probably the first option.”

“If we're threatening their rear areas they probably will,” Danny said. “Any alliance is screwed if they're cut off from their ore supplies.”

“Then again, that pulls them away from the fight in the south,” Liz pointed out. “And Knight Battalion is putting up stiff resistance. They're not going to be able to break through without their best troops.”

“So we put them in a catch-22 either way,” Nora said. “And that's really our goal up here, isn't it?”

Liz frowned. “Some of the other might not see it that way.”

Danny looked over at her, confused. “Wait, I thought that all of this was agreed upon?”

“By us,” Zach said. “Ghost Battalion knows that we're just a distraction force. But some of the others see it differently.”

“Is there a divide in the military council?”

Liz shook her head. “No, according to Anna it's coming from the alliance council. Some of them think we can open up a true second front here, not just a diversion.”

“That's insane,” Gavin said.

“Yeah, tell that to them.”

“How the heck are we supposed to get supplies? The only thing we have to get them here is the
Charon
, and that's not going to be enough,” Gavin said.

“Plus, we really don't have enough troops to fight Ragnarok in their own back yard,” Gwen said.

Zach spoke up. “Well, it's a moot point anyhow. The military council won't let it happen for the time being. Karen and Anna are no's, and David's on our side as well. Cody and Bryce want to keep their focus on Indianapolis.”

“As it should be,” Gavin said.

“So we're fine.”

“So long as Ragnarok doesn't find out we're inside Green Bay,” Danny said.

Zach nodded. “And that's what all the deception is for. Now come on. Let's strip the dead and get out of here.”

A few minutes later the unit headed toward their extraction point, laden down with plundered ammunition and supplies. The didn't need it right now, but if they could increase their stockpiles back in the city it could prove useful later. As Gavin had said, their only lifeline was
Charon
, and it might not be enough.

A pair of river craft were waiting for them along the shore of a lake, concealed in a sheltered cove. The teams climbed aboard and headed north for the shelter of Green Bay.

“How far have they gotten into the western district?” Danny asked the others. He spoke through the radio so he could be heard over the noise of the engines without shouting.

“They're across both bridges,” Liz said. “Karen managed to get five platoons assembled last night and they smashed their way across the north bridge. They have a pretty good foothold over there.”

“But it's not going to be easy,” Gwen added.

“What do you know that we don't?” Nora asked. Most of Black Wolf had taken the previous night off.

“Gray took a scout team across as well,” Liz informed her. “They penetrated pretty far, but then they ran into the boss.”

“Already?” Danny asked.

“It's another fortress capture point, like the one in Decatur,” Gwen said. “This one might be worse.”

“How so?”

“It's the stadium,” Liz told him. “It's been heavily fortified, and it dominates the area. We're going to have to hit it with everything we have just to get close.”

“Or we could just wear it down over time,” Nora suggested. “We still have the mortar battery, and we have
Charon's
main gun. If we bombard them for a week or so we should be able to weaken their defenses in at least one spot.”

“That's assuming they don't repair everything,” Liz replied.

“It worked for us in Eagle Creek.”

“Yeah, but Eagle Creek wasn't a fortress capture point,” Gwen said. “We don't know if it will repair itself faster.”

“And we really don't have the time to waste finding out,” Zach said. “We need to have our troops out here raiding, not fighting the NPCs inside the city.”

“We could ask for some temporary reinforcements,” Danny suggested.

“Out of the question,” Liz said.

Selene agreed. “Yeah, I don't think we should be doing anything to weaken the south right now.”

Danny frowned. “Then we're going to have to come up with something good for up here.”

“And it's not the end of the world if we don't take the district quickly,” Zach said. “I'd
like
to, since it gives us a lot more to use against Ragnarok. But if we can't we still have the base we need, and that's what matters most right now.”