It had taken more than a week of intensive practice, but they were finally ready to take on the ranger challenge. Everyone else had managed to pass, though some had to try two or three times before they had succeeded. They were the last ones.
The challenge was to eliminate a target at the center of the forest and then escape without any losses. The woods was crawling with patrols, and they had no idea what kind of target they were attacking, save for the fact that it needed to be blown up with charges. Their skills would be tested to their limits.
They had divided up into two teams. The first consisted of her, Miko, Selene and Liz. They would scout ahead and identify where the enemy patrols were. The second team had Zach, Robbie, Anna and Danny and would provide fire support once they ran into trouble. Their plan was to reconnoiter the area around their target, then hit it hard and fast. If there was a good opportunity to infiltrate they would take it, but otherwise it was far too much of a risk to try to sneak in. They would attack, hoping the shock of the initial assault would catch the enemy off guard. Once they had destroyed their target they would fall back and leave the area.
Selene and Miko moved up ahead of her. They were using silent weapons to avoid drawing attention to themselves, so the only one that could use a ranged weapon right now was Liz. Normally it wouldn't be much of a problem; even though weapons would make a lot of noise, the trees would serve to muffle and distort it, so it would be more difficult to tell where it was coming from. The problem was that they didn't know how far the enemy had spaced their patrols, and they didn't want several descending on them at once. Their recon work would help them to determine that.
Nora had been chosen to be in the vanguard team, but she still felt like she was inadequate. Liz and Miko were experts, and even Selene seemed to be much better than her at stealth. Liz and Anna had insisted she be in the vanguard, though she wondered whether it was because the others weren't quite up to par. Danny was passable, though still definitely the worst, and Robbie and Zach were only marginally better. But that still didn't explain why Anna wasn't in the first team.
Maybe it was because they felt that Redd Foxx needed to adapt as well. They would be working with players that didn't have the stealth skills they possessed, and they needed to learn how to adapt to those changes. Not all of those changes were bad, either. What Black Wolf lacked in stealth they made up for in firepower and battle craft. They would add a formidable backbone to the ranger company, and they were all grateful for that.
Anna had told her that she was especially happy about the changes. It would allow her troops to be far more aggressive because they would have heavily armed backup infiltrating alongside them. Other companies such as Sacred Sword had to trail behind because they would give away Redd Foxx's position, which could cost them precious seconds. But her scouts would be moving up beside their support now.
No, that wasn't right, Nora thought to herself. They were all her troops now, and she was Anna's second. She had to get used to that before they went out in the field.
Nora and Liz moved forward as Selene signaled them to move. That was a good sign. They had run into two patrols, but they were a good distance apart from one another. That meant they couldn't provide a lot of support to each other, and the vanguard team could pick them off before anyone was the wiser. On the other hand, it also meant that they needed to keep moving. If an enemy patrol stumbled on the rear team they were done for. If Zach was shot then they didn't have anyone to trigger the explosives.
No sight. No scent. No sound.
That was Redd Foxx's mantra, and it was a solid piece of wisdom. Nora often repeated it to herself as she moved, and she wasn't the only one. She knew that Miko did it as well, and she was pretty sure that Selene had also picked up on the practice. It was good to remember it as they pushed forward. They needed to pay attention to every move, because anything could give them away. The sight of a moving shape, the scent of burning powder or sweat, the sound of a snapping twig, any single one of them could spell doom.
No sight. No scent. No sound.
It wasn't simply a skill, however. There was no specific process for being stealthy. It was an art form, not a science, and you had to feel what you were doing. Everything had to be natural, smooth. That was what Gwen had emphasized during her training, and it was still something she struggled with a bit. She was trying to be stealthy. Instead, she should just be stealthy.
Nervousness and tenseness had no place. Nora moved from shadow to shadow, flowing like liquid. It wasn't like she completely vanished. She simply melted into the background of the forest, too insignificant to take notice of.
Liz held out her arm in front of her and signaled a stop. Nora took up a position behind a large tree and surveyed the area in front of them. Sure enough, there were four enemies in front of them. Two were soldiers, one was an engineer and one was an assault.
Liz waved Miko and Selene up to their position. She opened up her menu and pressed a few buttons. Symbols appeared over the heads of each of their enemies, made visible by their HUDs. It was a feature that had been in the game from the beginning but they hadn't taken advantage of until now. Locations, objects and persons in the game would could be market with a symbol which would show up for certain people once they were within visual range. In this case, the symbols were visible for their team only. There were four of them in all, and they signified who they were supposed to shoot.
Nora brought her gun up to her shoulder and aimed down the sights. She focused on her target, the soldier nearest to her with the yellow x above her head. A ten second countdown appeared in the lower right corner of her HUD. They would all fire when it reached zero.
She hoped that Liz's hunch was correct. They were probably far enough away from any enemy patrol, but if they weren't they were going to have a swarm of angry NPCs descending upon them. And that wasn't taking into account what would happen if they messed up their shots. It only took a split-second for one of the enemy to trigger the alarm.
Seven. Six. Five.
Nora put her finger on the trigger and relaxed. She was a good shot, but this was so much different that the other times she had fought. She had time to think about what she was going to do, and for some reason that seemed to put extra pressure on her. In her previous fights she was simply a soldier in the battle, firing off shots in the rolling chaos of battle. Now, she needed to act with far more precision.
Four. Three. Two.
Her weapon would help her, at least. Nora had carried the assault rifle she had received when she had first joined the game for months. She hadn't changed anything, save for replacing parts that had worn out. Right after the war with Ragnarok began, though, she had switched to a burst fire assault rifle, with a slightly longer barrel. It was less versatile than her previous weapon, but it also had a bit more range and was very, very accurate at short to medium range. A three round burst could put anyone down, especially with a headshot.
One. Zero.
The sound of three guns firing broke the calm. The four enemies fell, two shot in the torso, one shot in the head and one with an arrow sticking out of the base of his neck. Liz was becoming extremely proficient with the bow, almost to the point that it was terrifying. Nora couldn't quite hide the smile that started to creep over her face.
“What?” Liz asked her.
“Nothing,” Nora said, shaking her head.
“Danny must have given you plenty of practice,” Selene commented.
Liz couldn't quite hide her own smile. “Come on, let's keep moving.”
Selene and Miko took the lead again, heading toward the center of the battledome. Nora took a few seconds to look at the area map in her wrist menu. Sure enough, they were starting to get close to the objective. The question now was what was there, and what was guarding it.
She glanced over her shoulder to check on the progress of the second team. They were behind them by about thirty yards, making slow but steady progress. Once they got to the objective they w
ould plan and reorganize accordingly.
Selene's voice suddenly cut in on her thoughts. “Liz, Nora, rally on my position. We have our objective in sight.”
Nora followed her instructions. She found Selene and Miko sheltering behind a pair of tangled trees. Ahead of them was a large clearing with a compound in the center. It was surrounded by a tall chain link fence, with a single entrance on their side. A guard tower stood next to it, and it looked like it was armed with a twin heavy machine gun mount. Nora could see a number of enemy troops patrolling the interior of the compound. There were also a few large stacks of ammo crates. They were the objective, judging from the marker hovering above them.
“This may be a bit complicated,” Liz commented.
The guard tower was going to be the biggest problem. Miko could snipe the gunner, but to permanently put it out of action they needed explosives, and Zach was the only one with them. He would need to get close to use his grenade launcher too, and that meant exposing himself.
The second team came up behind them. “Do you have a plan?” Zach asked as he arrived.
“We're figuring out one,” Liz said.
Nora saw Danny surveying the scene in front of them. “I think I might have an idea,” he said.
“This was the worst idea ever!” Nora exclaimed as she sprinted past her teammates. Danny was right behind her.
“We took out the objective,” Danny said.
Nora reached the end of the line, turned and knelt down. She fired a burst at the horde of approaching enemies. “We have to live through this to complete the challenge, remember?”
They had stormed the enemy compound head on, using the element of surprise to take out most of the guards before any of them knew what was happening. The problem was that the alarm had been sounded, and now they had every single patrol in the dome bearing down on them.
Their only way out of this was to conduct a fighting retreat. They had split into four pairs and were gradually falling back, leapfrogging the teams behind them and then turning around to provide cover fire. Danny's machine gun was invaluable right now. The amount of firepower he was throwing out was enough to make even enemy NPCs pause for a moment, and he knew how to exploit it for its full effect.
Robbie and Selene passed by them and took up their position about ten yards to their rear, slightly staggered to one side so there was no chance of friendly fire. Anna and Zach came next, followed by Liz and Miko. They were in front now, and it was time for them to fall back. Nora stood back up and sprinted for the rear of the line. Danny was close behind.
Bullets cracked past her face, some coming so close that she swore she could feel the rush of air from them. It was probably her imagination, but the volume of fire coming at them was intense. They were facing at least a platoon with quite a few heavies mixed in.
It was a minor miracle that none of them had been shot yet. They had taken cover behind any rocks and trees they could find, but again the sheer volume of enemy fire should have hit at least one of them. Nora chalked it up to their ability to lay suppressive fire on the enemy. The question was, how long could they hold out?
They were less than a hundred yards from the extraction point. They just needed to get there and they would have passed the challenge. She wasn't sure the enemy was going to let them, though, and they would all fail the challenge if any one them were killed.
Anna buzzed them all. “We're close. Use everything you have at your disposal to keep them away. That means bullets, arrows, grenades, whatever.”
Nora reloaded her gun and started to spray bursts into the brush. She had four magazines left after this one, and she was going to use them for all they were worth. An explosion went off in front of her, followed by another that was much closer. Someone behind her had thrown a grenade, and Zach had also launched one.
It was their turn to go now. Nora and Danny got up and started to sprint for the rear.
“Nora, Danny, get to the extraction point,” Anna ordered them. “We're going to keep falling back. Once you get into position, signal us and we'll make a break for it.”
“Copy,” Nora acknowledged. They took off for their objective. The gunfire behind them was still extremely intense when they reached it.
“We're in position, but I'm reloading,” Danny said as he fed a fresh belt into his machine gun. “Fall back now, and I'll be able to lay down some sustained fire on them.”
“Got it. Fall back! Fall back now!”
A series of explosions went off in the direction of the rest of the squad. Nora guessed that they had all thrown grenades to mask their retreat. It took them only a few seconds to reach them. Robbie and Selene came first, followed by Liz and Miko. Both teams got over the objective line. Zach and Anna were last.
“Come on, come on,” Nora muttered to herself. The enemy fire was getting too close.
Zach suddenly fell forward, and for one crushing moment Nora thought they had failed the challenge. But the message didn't appear in front of them, She could see that he was still alive, trying to drag his way forward. Anna was trying to help him up, heedless of the bullets.
“Help her. I'll cover,” Danny said tersely. He started to fire long bursts at the enemy lines.
Nora got on her feet and ran over to Zach and Anna, crouched down to avoid the storm of bullets whipping through the air. Her rifle was slung over her back; there was no point in firing right now. She reach his side and grabbed Zach under his right arm. Anna grabbed his left arm, and they hauled him up.
“Go,” Anna said, and then they were off. Zach was trying to move, though he wasn't doing much to help. Nora and Anna had to manhandle him forward, with only Danny there to give them cover fire. The rest of them had passed the point of no return.
“Now or never. I can't hold them off,” Danny's voice said through the radio with a steady but urgent tone.
“Last few yards!” Nora said. She and Anna redoubled their efforts. It would hurt so much to come this far and then lose, mere yards from the final objective. The distance closed. Ten yards, five yards, three, two...
The trio collapsed as they crossed the objective line. Something heavy suddenly landed on Nora's back. But the message appeared on her HUD as well. Challenge completed.
“Sorry about that,” Danny said as he rolled off them. Nora turned around and saw that he didn't have his gun. It was sitting past the objective line in the now empty battledome.
“You left your weapon?” Selene asked.
“Hey, they didn't say I had to have it when I crossed the line,” Danny shrugged. He walked over and picked it back up.
They were in rough shape. Other than Danny everyone was either kneeling or lying flat on the hard floor of the battledome. Nora rolled over and stared at the ceiling.
“That was bad,” she said.
“And that's just the first rank,” Liz said. “There's ten levels.”
Nora didn't want to think about what those might entail right now. They had the title now. Ranger.
CHAPTER 5
Robber Baron
Everything was ready. Everyone had passed the ranger challenge. Their transport was built and everyone had been properly trained. The command structure was in place. All that was left was to test them in a real combat situation, and Zach though they had the perfect target.
'We've been given some information by our contacts with Ronin Company,” Anna was detailing to the rest of the council. “Apparently Ragnarok is using Crimson Eagle's old stronghold to store supplies, especially overdrive. It's the cheapest place to put it.”
Ragnarok's main base was in Old Chicago, but storage space within the city cost a considerable amount of money to rent. Storing outside of the city ran the risk of having the goods stolen if they weren't guarded, but it cost nothing. Ragnarok could also feel secure in the fact that their storehouse was miles behind the front lines. Any time Hydra had tried to drive further north they had been repulsed. Ronin Company didn't have enough troops to do anything about it eith
er, and that was it for the major players in the Old Chicago region.
Ragnarok was going to be in for a very nasty shock, however.
“According to Ronin scouts the area around the base isn't heavily guarded,” Zach said. “Most of their strength in the area is concentrated closer to the front line, in two locations. They call them Fort Baldr and Fort Odin.”
“Keeping with the Norse theme?” Bryce of Bravehart Company commented.”
“No worse than us naming this place Lerna,” Gina said.
Zach continued. “Anyhow, we sent out some feelers to Ronin, and they did some more scouting. The base isn't held by very many troops. They only have about twenty players there at the most, and they're more for loading and unloading stock,” Zach said.
“That seems awfully risky,” C.J. of Crimson Eagle said. Several others nodded along with him; Lee of Storm Hawk, Aaron of Band of Brothers, Tyler of Ironfist and Mike of Archangel.
“I think the logic is that the two forts will fend off any attack,” Anna said. “Anyone going after their storehouse would need to get past the forts first, and that's a tough proposition. They have mortar teams and pretty sizable garrisons inside them. Ronin has tried to sneak past them and they got slaughtered.”
“But given the fact you can get behind their lines with the helicopters, a raid is plenty feasible for us,” Yusuf mused.
“Yes, but we're going to need more than that,” Nora spoke up. “We have enough helicopters to transport the entire company, but we want to used some of them as gunships so it's going to be much less. And we want to be able to carry stuff as well.”
“As a lot of you are probably aware, the base is right next to a river,” Zach detailed. “Our plan is to send half of the company in by helicopter and half in by boat. We'll take the base, load up all the overdrive we can and then leave before Ragnarok has time to mount a response.”
Howl: A World at War Novel Page 5
