Deception City: A World at War Novel (World at War Online Book 5)

by Mitchell T. Jacobs

  The changes allowed them to operate more efficiently when communications were cut off. Before, Hydra had always relied on their radio being capable of linking them directly to headquarters. If they needed orders or clarification they could get it almost immediately. Company and battalion leaders still controlled the flow of battle, but they were usually called in as a matter of convenience. Squad and platoon leaders in the thick of the fighting could have their company and battalion officers perform essential communication with headquarters, thereby freeing them to focus on the tactical situation.

  That had worked for them in the past, but when closely examining the system Zach had found a significant number of deficiencies in the approach. Their methods of battlefield communications weren’t so much a system, rather being a nebula with no consistent organization. They had general methods they used, but they didn’t have designated protocols to follow.

  And while that worked fine when everyone’s cybernetic radio was working, it quickly turned into complete chaos if they were ever shut down. Zach considered it a testament to the alliance’s improvisational skill that they had managed to rally and get the separate units talking to each other, but he also believed that it had been a very close call. He remained certain they wouldn’t survive a second time if they simply left things the way they were.

  Over the past week he had worked on a system to direct the flow of communication’s traffic, organizing it so that it moved in a sensible and easy to control manner. Different levels of command now had specific roles to play. Company commanders handled issues on the tactical level in their designated zone, while battalion commanders coordinated the actions of several zones into a cohesive plan. Meanwhile, the main HQ controlled the flow of the entire battle, moving the various units where they were needed in respect to the big picture.

  There were still kinks to be worked out. Zach wasn’t sure how to organize the artillery. For now he provided links between the company headquarters and the batteries, but the might need to move them to lower or higher levels of command as needed. He didn’t want the batteries being bombarded with calls for support, especially if they weren’t necessary, but he also didn’t want units playing telephone, trying to get a response while they were in dire need of fire support.

  And the entire system needed to be tested under combat conditions. It was one think to have it working while it was completely quite out. It was quite another to have it function properly when the shells were falling and the casualties mounted. Zach had a feeling they’d get their opportunity soon, though he hoped it didn’t come too soon. They had a lot to get done before he felt they were completely ready.

  “Having fun?” Gavin asked as he walked up.

  “Actually, yeah,” Zach answered. He flipped one of the switches and checked the connection. As with the others, it worked flawlessly.

  “Flipping switches on a control panel is fun?”

  “Put that way, no, but putting together a project you’ve been working on for a while certainly is,” Zach replied. He flipped another switch and checked the line.

  Gavin nodded. “OK, I can see what you mean by that. I’ve had plenty of those projects myself.”

  Zach glanced over at him. “Done anything with them lately? The taxidermy skill still exists, right?”

  “It does, though it’s fallen out of favor,” he replied. “I’m surprised we’re not using chilus plate more often.”

  “We wouldn’t since we’re light infantry,” Zach pointed out. “I know the stuff is relatively light given its protective strengths, but it’s still pretty bulky.”

  Gavin leaned up against the wall of the company headquarters. “Yeah, but I’m surprised that Dragon Battalion hasn’t made more use of them. Maybe it’s a mobility thing?”

  Zach thought about that for a moment. “Could be,” he agreed. “Even in close combat, we still have room to maneuver. Now, if we were fighting in cramped tunnels where you could only have one or two people moving through at the same time, then that might be different.”

  “We didn’t use it a ton in Indianapolis.”

  “That’s because the subway tunnels were pretty wide,” Zach said. “I’m more thinking mineshafts, sewer tunnels, maintenance tunnels, that type of thing. Places where there’s no cover and no room to maneuver. That’s where the armor will do the most good.”

  Gavin glanced toward the front lines with a far-off look in his eye. Their command post wasn’t much, just a collection of communications equipment and a makeshift armory in the middle of a ruined brick building, but it would serve.

  “There’s probably other uses for the skill, but I really haven’t had time to check them out. I’d need to go hunting for different types of animal, and there’s just not any time. We’re either training, fighting or in transit. And I have all the other things I need to do because I’m a squad leader.”

  “Yeah, downtime is in short supply around here,” Zach agreed. He had experienced similar problems himself, trying to find the time to do other things. There were bunkers to be raided, areas to explore, but they could do none of that while they remained locked in a war against Ragnarok.

  “Maybe we should petition to get pulled off the line sporadically?” Gavin suggested. “Take us away from the main fighting for a bit, and let us go exploring somewhere else. Strike east or south and see what we can find.”

  Zach frowned. “That costs us troops we need on the front lines, though.”

  “But staying the way we are might be costing us in the long run,” Gavin pointed out. “Most of our advances came from us exploring and raiding. We’re not doing that anymore, and that might be causing us to fall behind.”

  “Because of schematics,” Zach deduced. “Is that really true though? We have dozens, maybe even hundreds of schematics in the library at Central City.”

  “Yeah, but have you noticed something about them?” Gavin asked. “They’re plenty useful, but they’re nothing game changing. Nothing like the overdrive formula, or the river craft, or the helicopter schematics we’ve found on other raids.”

  “So what you’re saying is that there’s an upper-end limit to how useful the individual schematics in a cache might be?” Zach asked.

  “Not in so many words, but yeah,” Gavin agreed. “I think there’s diminishing returns based on the number of them we discover at once.”

  “And you think we can get more game changers if we go back to exploring?”

  “I think that’s a lot more likely than on our current course,” Gavin told him. “People have said that Ragnarok probably found their jammer in Madison, but did they? That seems like something they’d get from a raid, not from a stockpile in a city.”

  “The implication being that they’re still raiding,” Zach said. “Where are they getting the troops for that, though? They have a lot of ground to cover just to fight us.”

  “That still doesn’t make it impossible to detach a squad or two for those kind of duties,” Gavin pointed out. “Why aren’t we doing the same?”

  Why indeed, though Zach felt there were several holdups. Their best raiding squads also contained some of the best fighters that the Hydra Alliance needed on the front lines if they wanted to win the war against Ragnarok. Black Wolf had performed several successful raids, but most of their experienced members were officers and couldn’t be withdrawn. Redd Foxx and Sacred Sword also had extensive raiding experience, but again, they were needed at the front.

  But maybe there was another solution. If they were keeping troops in reserve, they could always deploy small units from that section to explore and raid bunkers. That required Liz and Nora to be successful in their persuasion attempts, and Zach remained uncertain they would be able to pull it off. For as much strategic sense as it made, handing over Green Bay to the enemy would definitely stick in the throat of some people, and he could see conflict arising from that.

  “I’m hoping that we can get replaced by Magic Battalion,” Zach told Gavin. “Once that happens we have
a whole lot of flexibility, probably enough to deploy teams anywhere they’re needed. Who’s to say that command won’t decide that searching for more schematics isn’t a priority?”

  “I kind of just wish it could happen now, you know?” Gavin said. “We’re missing out on one of the things that made the game fun.”

  “And it takes away opportunities for you to use certain skills, right?” Zach asked. “I’m sure you’d like to use your hunting skills, being a bio major and all.”

  “Yeah, they do connect somewhat, but that’s not the most important thing. I just want to see some action that’s not at the other end of another player’s gun, you know?”

  Zach frowned. “So the fact that parts of the raiding and exploring relate to your college major has nothing to do with it?” he asked. “I’d have thought you’d want to use some of the stuff you learned for that. It’s how I was able to come up with this phone system.”

  “Well,” Gavin said, “I like biology, and studying it is fun. I’ve enjoyed it a lot, and it’s given me a bunch of useful information that I’ve used within the game. But it’s not like a career calling or anything.”

  “Aren’t you going to use it some way?” Zach asked, somewhat bemused. “I mean, if you weren’t being paid for the study, what would you be doing?”

  Gavin shrugged. “Honestly, I never thought that far ahead. Research? Education? I don’t know. Maybe I wouldn’t even use it. Actually, that’s just what happened. Something else completely unrelated came along, and I chose that.”

  “And you don’t regret that?” Zach asked. “Not spending all that time and effort getting your degree, to not even use it?”

  “It worked out?” Gavin shrugged. “I don’t know, that’s just the way it happened. I’m not one to think about those sort of things.”

  Zach nodded. “I get it. It’s just, well, I’m not someone who can spend a long time on something, only to completely give up on it and go in a different direction.”

  “You need return on your investment, is what you’re saying,” Gavin postulated.

  “Yeah, that.”

  But was that really true? Here he was, inside the virtual world hiding from the question he needed to answer outside in the real one. Should he take the job he had been offered, or should he stay where he was? That question continued to gnaw at him, and despite his feelings, he was avoiding having to answer it until he absolutely have to.

  Could he really just throw away all the time, effort and aggravation he had spent learning the skills that would be put to use, just because another opportunity had come along? If he needed return on his investment so badly, then why was he hesitating about making a decision so much? Could there be something else holding him back, something he didn’t fully realize?

  Zach suppressed the thoughts for now, but sooner or later he was going to have to deal with them. But how was he going to decide?

  “Anyhow,” he spoke, trying to get back to the situation at hand, “I’ll make sure that gets back to the military council. Now that you bring it up, I think preparing small raiding teams is the right way to go. But we’ll have to hold out until it becomes a practical option first.”

  “I get that,” Gavin said, “but at least there’s a light at the end of the tunnel right now.”

  Zach nodded. “Good. We’ll-”

  “Wolf Lead, Wolf Lead, come in,” a voice said over the radio. “This is Alpha 2.”

  “What is it, Ethan?”

  “We’re getting bombarded by Ragnarok mortars. Can we call in some counterbattery fire?”

  “Do you have a position that they’re firing from?” Zach asked.

  “We can estimate it, yeah. I didn’t want to call it into the batteries, because it’s pretty minor and I thought they might ignore me.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Zach assured him. “Gives me an opportunity to test out the phone lines as well.”

  “Ah. Are they operational?” Ethan asked.

  “Most of them. Give me a call from your field telephone with the coordinates,” Zach ordered.

  “Copy that. Alpha 2, out.”

  A few seconds later, one of the HQ telephones rang. Every squad in a defensive position had their own field telephone, powered by a crank generator. Their lines weren’t buried underground for ease of movement, allowing them to quickly redeploy the equipment with little trouble. It left them vulnerable to being severed by raiders or during an artillery bombardment, but that tradeoff was worth it. Even if the radios were down, they could communicate with their forward positions.

  Zach quickly took note of the coordinated before hanging up the receiver and picking up the line to the rear areas.

  “Must be fun, working in a jury-rigged call center,” Gavin laughed.

  Zach had to smile at the comment, but given time his system would prove its worth. At least he didn’t have to crank his phone every time he wanted to use it. The company headquarters phones were powered off batteries.

  He flipped a switch and spoke. “Battery 3, battery 3, this is Black Wolf Command.”

  “We hear you, Black Wolf Command,” came the answer.

  “Good. I have a fire mission for you,” he said. Zach detailed the coordinates, then hung up once he was finished.

  “And now we wait and see,” Gavin commented.

  “Wait and see about what?”

  “If it works?”

  “It already worked,” Zach pointed out. “I was able to take a request for fire support from one of the frontline units and relay it back to the artillery batteries within thirty seconds.”

  “What if it misses?”

  “That’s a targeting problem, not a problem with the communications system. That worked perfectly,” Zach said with a bit of pride. Sure, it was just a bunch of data inside a virtual construct, but he had spent a considerable amount of time creating it, so he would at least take some satisfaction.

  “OK, point taken.” Gavin straightened back up. “Are we doing anything offensive anytime soon?”

  “Not for now. Still trying to get the different strategic situations straightened out,” Zach told him. “Of course, that doesn’t mean we’ll have calm. Ragnarok’s probably going to come knocking very soon.”

  “Then I should probably make sure were ready. Have fun in the call center,” Gavin called back as he left the command post.

  “Is that what we’re calling it now?” Zach called back, but by then Gavin had already left.

  He turned his attention back to his work. He needed to get this finished.

  And once he was done with that, he had another decision to make.

  * * *

  “How did the meeting with the military council go?” Zach asked Nora later that evening when they met for dinner.

  Nora grimaced. “About as well as you can expect. There’s was a considerable amount of pushback to the plan, though Lex was surprisingly receptive. I think he knows that they’re not doing much good up there right now.”

  “That eliminates the biggest roadblock, doesn’t it?” Zach asked. “I would have thought that they’d be offering the most resistance, but now? That should help move things forward.”

  “Right, but I’m getting pushback from other people. David and Gina, of all people, think that taking away the northern front will allow Ragnarok to focus all their forces in the south.”

  “Which is true,” Zach pointed out.

  “Like they’re not doing that right now. How was your project?”

  “It went well. Everything’s up and working,” Zach told her.

  “And how’s your decision coming?”

  Zach frowned. “Which one?”

  Nora snorted. “Oh please, which one. You know which one I’m talking about.”

  “Oh, yeah.” He paused for a moment. “I’m still deciding.”

  “Well, I’m going to keep asking until you make a decision.”

  “Gosh, you’re a pain,” Zach commented lightly.

  “Well, you chose m
e,” Nora replied with a cheeky grin.

  “I could always change that.”

  “As if. You’d miss me too much.”

  Zach laughed. “That’s true.”

  “You’ll have to make a decision sometime,” Nora reminded him.

  He would indeed, and Zach knew that all too well. But what would it be? Even he didn’t know at this point.

  21

  RIPVINE

  Danny liked what he saw as soon as he stepped out of his transport helicopter into the small clearing. Thick brush and forest sprawled out all around him, choking out most avenues of movement aside from a few paths.

  And those routes were currently being covered, judging from the sounds of digging he heard once his ride had taken off and headed back to base. Sacred Sword had been charged with holding this section of the front, and it definitely looked like they were taking it seriously.

  But that didn’t surprise Danny at all. For months, Knight Battalion’s mission had been to guard Hydra’s northern flank against any possible Ragnarok attack while the rest of the alliance took Indianapolis, and they performed well. They knew how to create fortified strongpoints, and they especially knew how to defend them ferociously. Even with their brute force and superior numbers, Ragnarok had never managed to break through.

  They didn’t have the ability to construct heavily fortified redoubts in terrain like this, but they could make due. From fighting at the Ghost Line around Green Bay, Danny knew that even hastily built fortifications and entrenchments could become a difficult obstacle, particularly when they guarded the only good avenues of advance.

  “Morgan!” Danny called out when he came across the commander of this section of line.

  Morgan glanced at him and then waved him over. “Wondered when you’d get here.”

  Danny moved to join him. “So, how’s the preparations going?” he asked.

  A half-smile creased Morgan’s dark face. “A lot of digging. And I mean, a lot of digging.”

  “Can’t you just focus your efforts along the paths?”