Carnage City: A World at War Novel (World at War Online Book 6) (23 page)

“Why?”

“Because you might be stuck here with us when it happens.”

C
lear
.

Selene saw Miko's hand signal through her binoculars and motioned for her scout unit to move. Her small team of four troops quickly made their way from building to building, making sure to limit their exposure. Even though the twilight would hide them, an astute observer could still spot them and raise the alarm.

If that happened then their entire operation would be in jeopardy. Ragnarok would certain step up patrols in the area, and Selene was willing to bet they'd start turning over every stone to find out just how enemy troops had gotten behind their lines. Once the storm drain tunnels were discovered, it was all over.

The key then, was to not get caught. Stealth would play a critical role in that, but misdirection could also help them. Selene had devised a plan to take advantage of that, assigning small raiding teams to different sections of the front lines with orders to cause chaos. That could be anything from disrupting supply and communications lines, sniping, and laying traps to outright assaults on isolated positions. Ragnarok would have to add patrols to counter the raiders.

And every soldier they sent toward the front lines was one more that wouldn't be in their way, both now and later. Selene's team had encountered NPC patrols, but those were easy enough to dodge. The players were the real danger, but so far none of them had shown their faces.

Their mission carried serious risk, but they needed to perform it. Selene wasn't about to go in blind, and wanted several avenues to approach the target area. In order to avoid stumbling into an ambush or blundering into the middle of an enemy position they needed accurate information. Some of that could be gleaned from photoreconnaissance flights, but in order to gain the most they needed eyes on the ground.

Alpha Wolf had four teams scouting approaches to the target building, looking for the best ways to approach. Speed wasn't always the most important thing. It certainly helped, but if they had to cross a considerable number of areas where they were exposed then the tradeoff probably wasn't worth it. Better to take a little longer and be safe than to hurry and risk discovery.

Selene opened up her wrist menu when they got to the next building and looked over the map. They had two blocks to go before they reached the area around their objective.

“Miko,” she said quietly over the radio, “can you go on ahead? We want to make sure we don't run into any more trouble.”

“Copy that. Do you want me to just get the data myself? The last thing we need is for a patrol to come along our extraction route.”

Selene nodded. “Copy that. Go on ahead.”

They only needed one person to gather the data on the area, and Miko was their best stealther. The rest of the team could afford to hang back while she went to work, minimizing their exposure to watching eyes.

Selene leaned back against an inner wall and sighed. She certainly hoped they weren't discovered, and if they were she hoped Ragnarok would misread their intentions. Ghost Battalion was notorious for raiding behind enemy lines, and Black Wolf had been at the forefront of most of their operations. She hoped the enemy would believe they were looking for targets of opportunity to simply cause chaos, not that they were aiming for a specific objective.

They could afford to lose their infiltration route through the storm drain system, though it would be painful. They still had the option to go in by helicopter or river craft, even though they were far more dangerous. But if Ragnarok guessed their intentions they were done for. Black Wolf would never be able to break through the defenses they'd put around the jammer building, even if they brought the entire company with them.

They had one shot at this, and they needed to do it right.

“
E
veryone here
?” Zach asked as he looked around the command center.

“Everyone from my platoon's here,” Danny said.

“Mine as well,” Selene confirmed.

“And me,” Anna said with a smile and a wave.

Black Wolf's leadership had gathered in the tower command center to go over final plans for the raid. Even though Bravo Wolf and Redd Foxx weren't directly involved, Selene wanted different opinions from outside sources and asked for their help as a result.

Zach, Nora and Danny were all present, but she'd be running the show, since she had been tasked with commanding the raiding force. It felt somewhat odd having everyone defer to her, but she quickly pushed those thoughts aside. They had a lot to go over in a short period of time.

“So the offensive starts in two days,” Selene said wearily. “That really doesn't give us much time to prepare.”

“I know,” Zach said. “I tried to fight it as much as I could, but the military council pretty much steamrolled me when I got too insistent.”

“We have our reasons,” Anna said. “Ragnarok looks like they're assembling for another attack, and we want to preempt them. Otherwise we might lose our chance to get the drop on them and take the district.”

“Still,” Gavin spoke up, “that doesn't leave us much room for error. We're going to have to move fast. Are we ready to launch the raid tomorrow, or are we going to have to cut it close to the main offensive?”

“Tomorrow's Friday,” Ethan said. “That could make it rough unless we postpone it to the evening.”

“Wouldn't we do that anyhow?” Gavin said. “Fight in the evening or night, I mean.”

“Depends on how many troops we can get online at once,” Selene told him. “We're definitely going to have to assault the objective, so we need to have enough to do that without getting crippled if we suffer losses.”

“So that leave Saturday,” Nora said.

“And like I said, that doesn't leave us very much room for error,” Gavin said.

It didn't, but what other option did they have right now? Hydra Command's orders were pretty much set in stone, and Selene doubted they'd budge at such a late time. They'd just have to figure out some way to make this work.

She opened up her wrist menu and looked down. “OK, so the rest of the alliance is launching their attack in the late afternoon. If we want to time it so there's enough of a gap between our operation and theirs then our best bet is probably a morning raid.”

“Hopefully that'll catch them napping as well,” Zach said.

Selene pressed a few buttons on the map table, zooming in on the area around the target and highlighting the four routes they had explored.

“From the look of things the three northern routes are our best bet. We could use the southern route, but truck convoys going to the front occasionally use it as an alternate route so there's far more patrols.”

“I'd say that's a good reason to avoid it,” Logan said. “But which of the three are we going to use?”

“All of them,” Selene said, looking at each of the squad commanders in turn. “One for each of our squads. We'll converge on the target building from three directions and launch our attack from there.”

“I'm guessing you want to divide up your forces to make sure at least one of them gets through, right?” Xavier asked.

“That's the plan. Plus, if one gets discovered they still might not spot the other two. Even if it weakens us we can still launch the assault as planned, just with less troops at our disposal.”

“What about artillery support?” Ethan asked.

“We have a battery of four 155mm guns specifically assigned to us. Their callsign is Thunder. Try not to use them unless you absolutely have to, but if we're discovered called them down on Ragnarok's heads. We can't afford to get bogged down in a firefight short of the objective.”

“What's our armament going to be?” Logan said.

“Carbines, with assault rifles for snipers and heavies. We'll also have extra grenades, and each trooper will carry two blocks of explosives along with their kit. We need to make sure we can destroy the jammer.”

“Are you bringing along our new guns?” Javy asked.

“Yes, that's already been discussed,” Nora spoke up. “They're going to capture them at some point anyhow, so we might as well use them. That's what they're built for, right? To give us a lot of firepower in a compact package.”

Anna nodded. “I don't like it, but I see the wisdom in the decision.”

“Do we know anything about what the interior of the building looks like?” Zach asked. “That's my main concern. One wrong turn and the whole operation goes wrong.”

Selene nodded. “Yeah, and there's not a ton we can do about that. We'll split up into fireteams once we're inside.”

“How are they going to communicate once they're split up? I'm guessing Ragnarok will start the jammer up once they figure out what's going on.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Danny said.

Everyone looked over at him.

“Any reason why they wouldn't?” Anna asked.

“It cripples their communications too, so would they really want to do that when one of their most valuable assets is under attack? That's like handing us the initiative on a silver platter.”

“They know the terrain,” Nora said.

“Yeah, but they don't know how many troops we're bringing, or what our plan is. If they don't figure that out and spread the word around how are they going to coordinate their defenses?”

“That's true, but it's not like we can depend on it,” Xavier pointed out.

Selene nodded. “Right. We'll try to remain as coordinated as possible. We'll have passwords snd signals, but there's always going to be the risk of friendly fire in an environment like this one. Just consider it another hazard.”

“We always seem to get the worst of them, don't we?”

“We'll find a way to win,” Nora said. “Always have.”

Selene nodded. “We will. Any questions?”

There were none.

“We have two days. Let's make sure we're ready to do this.”

“
S
elene
!”

The ball came flying toward her, past Xavier's outstretched arms. Selene plucked it out of the air cleanly, then sank a jumper from inside the paint area.

“Nice pass,” she said to Zach as they sprinted back down the court.

“Getting better,” Zach said with a grin.

“Still losing though,” Danny quipped.

“You know, what would you be saying right now if you were on the same team?” Nora said.

“Have they ever been on the same team?” Gavin asked.

“Come to think of it, no.”

“Maybe we should do that sometime,” Javy said. “For the entertainment value if nothing else.”

“Uhuh. And are you volunteering to be on their team? Because I'm pretty sure it's going to turn into a scoring competition between the two and not an actual game,” Zach said.

“We just score more points than the other team,” Danny said.

“Yeah, except good teams can crush you by playing good defense,” Miko said.

“As if you know what that is,” Danny said with a grin.

Selene laughed. “He's got you there.”

Miko cracked a smile as well. “Not all of us were super-athletes in high school.”

“There's only one of them here,” Selene said with a bit of sarcasm.”

“Clearly it's me,” Danny said. He made a move, dodging past Javy and heading straight for the paint. It looked like he had a clear shot...

But Selene moved far, far too fast. She reached in and swatted away the ball, sending it careening into a mass of other players. There was a mad scramble, and Zach and Nora ended up on the ground wrestling for control.

“Jeeze, a little enthusiastic, huh?” Miko commented.

Javy laughed. “Bet you have a lot of experience with that. Ow!” he said as Zach stood up and lightly bounced the basketball off his back.

“Sorry, friendly fire,” Zach smiled.

“Yeah, let's not have a repeat of that any time soon. Especially not in the middle of the raid.”

“Why? You're going to be sitting around in the tower the entire time,” Gavin said.

“Oh, it's all for your sake, of course. Just looking out for you,” Javy replied cheerfully.

“What's the score?” Miko asked.

Everyone looked at each other.

“Uh, no clue?” Zach said. “Danny, Selene?”

“I don't know,” Danny said.

Selene shrugged. “Neither do I.”

“Huh?
You
don't know what the score is?” Zach asked.

“Eh, there's more than one thing on my mind right now.”

More than one thing indeed. Even outside in the real world trying to relax Selene kept going over the details of the coming raid in her head. Ingress and egress routes, armaments, assault teams, contingency plans, everything kept popping up inside her head.

And the questions came with them. Would they have enough troops and information to accomplish their mission? How tough would the guard force be? How would Ragnarok try to respond? When they did, how fast would it be?

Questions, questions, questions. And the only way to find the answers to them was to perform the mission, one with a very real chance of failure.

But that suited her just fine. Part of the thrill of the game was testing themselves, fighting against the odds against strong competition. And while success might not be certain, that made winning all the more sweet.

“Start from zero?” Nora suggested.

Everyone nodded.

“Start from zero,” Selene nodded.

“
T
hat's
the last of them,” Logan said over the radio.

“Any casualties?”

“None, though those frog things sure tried to make it happen. They went down easy enough to knives, though.”

“Good. Let's move as planned.”

She joined the rest of Gavin's squad and began heading toward their objective. A low morning fog covered the area, giving them some extra cover from prying eyes. That served as a double-edged sword, though, because it limited their vision as well.

Hopefully it wouldn't matter, since it was a weekend and most players were probably sleeping in. Morning combat tended to be very rare for that reason, and Selene hoped their timing would catch Ragnarok off guard.

“Patrol coming our way,” Miko said. “Looks like it's NPC guards. Easy enough.”

Without a word the entire squad melted into cover. Sure enough, a fireteam of four guards marched past in their unflinching, almost mechanical fashion. They scanned the area for any signs of activity, but Selene knew from plenty of experience that they lacked the abilities of veteran players. They worked off an algorithm, which limited their effectiveness. They didn't have the instincts, so to speak.