Carnage City: A World at War Novel (World at War Online Book 6) (12 page)

“If I could say something?” Nora spoke up.

“Go ahead,” Bryce told her.

She opened up her wrist menu and activated the projector. “OK, the capture point is sited in the northern end of the district, slightly off from where the center would be. As it stands the western part of the line controlled by us and Crimson Eagle is the closest to that point.”

“And you think we can use that as a jumping off point, is that right?” Cody asked curiously.

“Yes. That’s probably going to be the most stable part of the line,” Nora told him. “Right now we’re in the final stages of fortifying the building. It currently has artillery, anti-tank weaponry, a trench system outside and provides a dominating view of the surroundings. We can pretty much see everything and anything we want to.”

“But Ragnarok’s not one to just sit and let us have it,” C.J. pointed out. “As that last attack showed us.”

“I think we can use it as a forward base of operations,” Nora said. “At the very least, we can stock it with ammunition and other essentials to shorten our supply lines.”

It didn’t sound like much, but shaving off a few minutes between runs could mean the difference between a unit being amply supplied, or being in danger of running out of ammunition. And they certainly had the space to spare.

Cody asked that exact question. “Do you have room to store the supplies?”

“Fifteen levels worth,” Zach told him. “More, if you count the basement level. We’ll also have the supply tunnel to bring in more, if we want.”

“Then we’ll get on it immediately. No time to waste.”

Zach allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction as the meeting continued. At least things were moving at a brisk pace now, and he couldn’t complain about that.

“
W
ell
, that went pretty well,” Nora commented as they left HQ.

Zach nodded. Nothing truly unexpected, but he was pleased that everything was running smoothly. Dragon and Magic Battalions would continue to press forward, taking small pieces of the front until they had a secure position. Once that happened, they could start to move units around and prepare for the decisive offensive.

“You were quick to jump on the uses for the tower,” he said.

“I have my reasons. Mostly because it is a good place to launch an attack from. And there’s some other benefits too.”

“Such as?”

“We’re getting a ton of ammunition to store in the tower. And if we so happen to need that in a tight situation, well…”

“Good thinking.” He frowned. “I wonder if any of the others are going to be able to think this way.”

“I think they will,” Nora said. “Anyone we choose has an eye for more than just straight combat.”

“Right. So, anything else to do today in here?”

“Not that I can think of. We’re meeting at six?”

Zach nodded. “Yes. Belfast Manor?”

“I can always use a beer.”

“A woman after my own heart,” Zach said with a smile.

“Aren’t you a lucky one. See you at six,” Nora said. She opened her wrist menu and then vanished from the virtual world.

Zach took one last look around before he did the same. Things were running smoothly, and he thought he could see the light at the end of the tunnel. But something bothered him, and he couldn’t figure out what it was.

The ease of it all. That’s what it was. Zach couldn’t quite shake the feeling that their fights with Ragnarok had been only a prelude to the real showdown. They had to be planning something big, and right now, Black Wolf was probably squarely in their crosshairs.

But there was nothing he could do about it right now, and the real world called to him. Zach opened up his own wrist menu and logged out.

A
chunk
of concrete blew out of the wall behind him, and Danny quickly hit the floor. He made a quick glance up to see the bullet hole, mere inches from where his head had been a second before.

Danny thanked his lucky stars that he was still alive and facing an amateur. A better, more experienced sniper would have aimed for the chest since it presented a much bigger target.

But he couldn’t relax at all. Even though the enemy might not be up to par, he or she still remained dangerous. They might wise up and make a proper shot, or they could make the proper adjustments and kill him on the next attempt. Either way, he was very leery about standing up at the moment.

“Having fun hugging the concrete?” Miko’s voice said over the radio.

“Oh yes, tons of it. Mind taking care of my little problem for me?”

“Hmm, what’s in it for me?”

Danny frowned. “What do you mean what’s in it for me? I’m going to have my head blown off here.”

“Maybe I think that’ll be amusing.”

“You’ve been hanging around Selene too much,” Danny complained.

Miko laughed. “Yeah, that is something she’d tell you, isn’t it?”

“Look, are you going to help me or not?”

Miko didn’t respond for a moment.

“And now you don’t answer?”

“Oh, calm down,” Miko said. “I’m trying to figure out where he is. He ducked down out of sight a second ago, and I want to make sure he didn’t move somewhere else.”

“Can you get him?”

“Hold on, I’ve got to find him first.”

Danny decided to risk standing up, but as soon as his head cleared the nearest window another shot rang out, forcing him back down again. He glanced back at the wall again to see a second bullet hole in the concrete.

Looking closer, from the angle of impact it appeared that his attacker was shooting upward at a slight incline. And since he was on the sixth floor of the building…

“I found him,” Miko said.

“Fifth floor of one of the buildings to the north, right?”

“Wait, how do you know that?”

“I guessed based on my knowledge of the terrain, plus the angle of the bullet impacts,” Danny told her. “So, can you do anything about him?”

“It’s going to be hard,” Miko replied. “He’s an amateur, but he seems to understand cover. He’s not up against the window sill like I’d expect. He’s taking cover further inside the room, like a good sniper would do. I can’t get a good angle on him from up here.”

“Where are you at?”

“Ninth floor.”

“Can you get a better angle on him?”

“I have a better idea, actually. Do you have a crew on the anti-tank guns?”

“Yeah, we do.”

“Give me a second then,” Miko told him.

Danny continued to sit in cover, wondering just what she was up to. He received his answer a second later.

Bam!

He heard the sound of an artillery piece firing, followed by another explosion further away.

“It’s safe to stand up now,” Miko told him.

“What did you do?”

“I had them fire a high explosive shell into the window. He won’t be getting up anytime soon, and it might make the rest of their snipers think before they take shots at us.”

Danny stood back up and looked toward the enemy-held part of the city. Smoke poured out of a gaping hole in one building, highlighting just how much damage the shell had caused. It wasn’t a matter of a huge amount of explosive power, but rather the power the shell did carry being contained to a small space, which served to amplify its effects. The shockwave from the blast would reflect off the walls, making it deadly to anyone inside.

“So that’s what, the third or fourth sniper we’ve had taking potshots at us this past week?”

“Yeah, and they’re not going away anytime soon. But they’re not sending the elite ones,” Miko observed. “If they were then we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”

“Right. Any reason you can think of for that?”

“Hm, maybe they want to give their guys some training? We’re stuck here in a static position, so that makes their targets somewhat predictable.”

“So what, we’re operating as a living, breathing shooting gallery?”

“Seems like it.”

“Couldn’t they have used the battledomes for that?” Danny asked.

“First, they’d have to get through the Old Chicago corridor, which is pretty dicey now. And anyone they send to the battledomes is someone that’s not on the front lines. They’re as strained for troops as we are.”

That fact was often lost in the shuffle, but Danny agreed with her. When the war started Ragnarok had a significant numerical advantage, while Hydra had the edge in technology. Over the course of the fighting the situation had equalized. Ragnarok was still larger, but not by much at this point. And right now, thanks to Ghost Battalion’s raiding capabilities, that didn’t count for much. Numerous troops remained tied up guarding the roads.

“Still,” he said, “if they’re using this as a training ground they’re being pretty harsh about it. That last one was definitely an amateur, and they threw him straight into the fire, just like that. What gives?”

“Maybe it’s a form of training?” Miko suggested.

“How the heck is that supposed to work?”

“Well, none of us can die in here, so sending out raw troops isn’t an instant death sentence like it would be in the real world. And a lot of people have the wrong idea about sniping?”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, to them it’s all about being a glamorous killer, blasting heads off with impunity and watching all the little ants on the other side cower helplessly.”

Danny snorted at that description.

“You laugh, but it’s true for a lot of them,” Miko said. “They’re all glory hounds who just think about killing and nothing else.”

And that was a mistake only a newcomer or amateur would make in this world, Danny thought to himself. Snipers might be able to reach out and hurt the enemy from a long distance, but if they weren’t careful they’d invite a world of pain down upon themselves. Miko’s retaliation with the gun was fairly standard, actually.

Sniper duels sounded glorious and exciting, but they rarely happened. Hydra’s standard practice was to target the enemy sniper with heavy firepower, whether that was a recoilless rifle shell, mortar fire or even a 155 shell right on top of their heads. None of that was considered overkill either: with the amount of damage a skilled sniper could do, killing them any way possible remained a high priority.

Still, even in open field battles the snipers fought and thrived in a way that amazed him. Even with all manner of weaponry aimed at them, even with everyone on the battlefield wanting them dead, they were able to inflict serious damage on the enemy, killing officers, specialists and generally wreaking havoc.

And the elite ones were able to do it because of one weapon, Miko had explained to him. It wasn’t their sniper rifle, either. That was just a tool, a means to accomplish an end. No, the greatest weapon of an elite sniper was their brain.

The best of the best knew how to use their skills properly. When to fire and when to wait, who to target, when to be bold and when to be cautious, whether a kill or information was more valuable, all that was determined by a sniper’s cunning and savviness, not by their shooting ability. Of course, all good snipers were crack shots as well, but even the best shots meant little if they weren’t utilized properly.

“So, do you think this is just to get it all out of their system then?”

“Yeah, I do. Take our friend, for example. He knew how to utilize cover properly, but he didn’t move when he missed the first shot, and he didn’t account for us using overwhelming firepower to take him out.”

“To be fair, most people wouldn’t think that we’d use an anti-tank gun on just one enemy soldier.”

“Snipers aren’t most people though,” Miko pointed out. “We can cripple entire platoons or companies if we do our jobs right, and we have to recognize that the enemy knows that as well. Of course they’ll use everything they have at their disposal to keep that from happening.”

Danny looked out of the window again, checking the surroundings for any kind of movement. He didn’t think Ragnarok would try anything today since it was a Monday afternoon, but they couldn’t be certain.

Most of Black Wolf was offline at this point, though they had a few guards on duty at the moment. The research study group were all present, along with a few others. Most of them manned the now-completed outer fortifications, a series of well-constructed trenches, pillboxes and machine gun nests. Anti-tank ditches and obstacles ringed the outskirts, making it almost impossible for armored vehicles to approach. Even if they tried, the impediments would slow them down and make them sitting ducks for the anti-tank guns in the tower.

Hephaestus had completed all the phone lines within the tower and were in the final stages of digging the supply tunnel. They’d install a miniature railway as well, allowing them to quickly bring in huge loads of supplies through the underground tunnel. This place would be filled to the brim with ammunition before they knew it.

But Ragnarok’s lack of a response bothered him, and he knew he wasn’t alone. Selene was on edge just like him, jumping at every shadow wondering if it was the long-expected attack. Zach and Nora hid it better, but their concern still seemed fairly apparent to him.

It just wasn’t like them to leave the enemy alone, especially when they held valuable ground. Ragnarok had to know the value of this place, so why were they giving them time to dig themselves in even further? Pretty soon the tower would be so fortified that it would be impossible to force Black Wolf out.

Danny could only think of two possible reasons for the calm. Either their enemy had completely lost their minds, or Ragnarok was in the midst of preparing a sweeping offensive. He didn’t think the former was very likely, so the question was, where would the attack come?

He didn’t think they’d try to launch another flank attack in the western forests, partly because that had failed and partly because the area had been so heavily reinforced. Would they try to force themselves through Rogue Battalion’s positions to try and widen the Old Chicago Corridor? Would they attack here or somewhere else in the Cudahy District? Was there something else the Hydra Alliance wasn’t aware of?”

Whatever the case, the lack of knowledge made him very uneasy. Even from the very beginning the Hydra Alliance always tried to fight with as much information they could gather as possible. Reconnaissance and assessment of the enemy’s capabilities was paramount, and battles where they had gone in completely blind were rare.

The only situation like that he had been a part of was the attack on the Central City District in Indianapolis, and that had almost resulted in disaster. Lack of knowledge of the terrain had led them to calling down artillery fire on a building with chemical storage tanks. The resulting chemical cloud had killed half the battalion and only served to further illustrate the critical role that knowledge played on the battlefield.

But they lacked the same reconnaissance capabilities here. Oh, they had tried to send out patrols, but like the ill-fated one he had led a few weeks back, Ragnarok had been prepared with defenses of their own. The only real progress they could make was either through the tunnels, or from elevated positions like this tower.

And that lack of a clear picture disturbed him. Danny felt like they were about to get cold-cocked by their enemy, caught off guard with little time to respond. That thought unsettled him greatly.

“I wonder why they’re not using their elites here as well,” Danny said. That would be the one thing that would make this situation even worse. He knew Ymir was in the forests, but the Valkyries or Fenris could show up at any time, and the last thing they needed was a confrontation with some of Ragnarok’s best commando units.

“Are you talking about the Valkyries, or the Wraith?” Miko asked him.

Danny thought about that for a moment. “Both, I guess. He’s part of the Valkyries too, so if he’s here I’d imagine they’d be as well.”

There was a pause at the other end of the line. “I don’t know about the Valkyries,” Miko said, “but I know he’s here somewhere. I can feel it.”

That statement unsettled him even more. “You’re sure of that?”

“I haven’t seen him at all, or even come across any of his work yet, but I know he’s here. It’s the sniper’s sixth sense, if you follow.”

“I do.” Veterans frequently relied on their instincts, and he was no different.

But if the Wraith was in the area like Miko suspected, then that changed the situation immensely. Danny had fallen victim to him once in the early days of the game, but it wasn’t the fear of dying again that concerned him. No, it was the fear of the Wraith himself.

He had an aura about him, a mystique that could intimidate anyone with just the mere hint that he was active in an area. That was the kind of reputation that preceded someone like him, possibly the best sniper in the Old Chicago region. Only the best of the best in Hydra could even come close to matching him. Miko, maybe, but Danny was hard pressed to think of any others.

“Do you think he’s watching now?”

“Who knows,” Miko said. “We certainly wouldn’t if he was.”

Maybe, Danny thought, but he was going to remain cautious. Otherwise, there might be a bullet lodged in his skull very soon.