Fang: A World at War Novel (World at War Online Book 3)

by Mitchell T. Jacobs

“Just do it or we're all dead!”

  Zach switched channels. “Black Wolf, put on your gas masks. Do it now!”

  Every player had a gas mask as a part of their standard kit, but none of them had ever used it. There had been no need to do so. Zach wondered why they needed to now, but there wasn't time to waste. He yanked his mask out of its pouch and started to fit it to his face.

  The view through the lenses was strange, distorted. Zach felt a bit disoriented as he tried to find his bearings. Then he saw what Anna had been talking about. A billowing cloud of yellow-green gas swept over them.

  “What's going on?” Zach asked Anna.

  “Are you guys OK?” she asked back. She sounded shaken, he noted.

  “I don't know,” Zach told her.

  “Do a roll call,” she ordered him.

  Zach did so and was stunned at the results. Almost half of the company was either dead from exposure or badly injured. Many of them hadn't been able to get their masks on in time, or had fitted them improperly.

  “Are you sure?” Zach said to Danny as he tried to confirm the carnage.

  “We've been hammered pretty badly,” came the response. “The only saving grace is that all of the stalkers in our area are dead as well.”

  “OK, so this wasn't planned by them, then,” Zach said. “Try to get everyone together as best you can.”

  Half the company. They were already short on troops, and now this had happened. He switched his channel.

  “Anna, we've lost half our troops,” he told her.

  “Consider yourselves lucky then. We lost two thirds of ours,” came the response.

  “What happened?”

  “I think there were storage tanks or something of that nature inside the building,” Anna said. “Once it blew up then the gas went everywhere.”

  “What's our play now?” Danny asked. “We might not have enough troops to take this place now.”

  Zach thought for a moment. “We still have Barghest and Liz's half of Redd Foxx. We can strip the dead of their ammo, so we're in no danger of running out any time soon. It'll be tough, but I think we can take this.”

  “We go for broke,” Anna said. “We don't have enough troops to sweep the entire district now. I'll contact Karen and coordinate with them. We'll push to the center and take it, then hold out until the victory timer expires. It's our only real shot at this.”

  “That's assuming we can take out the boss first,” Danny said. “Ah well. My platoon is ready to move on your signal.”

  “OK then. Black Wolf, move toward my marker. We'll link up and then go from there.”

  Zach watched the gas clouds continue to move as they walked. “You know, with the wind moving east that will send the gas over the enemy occupied parts of the city.”

  “The ones across the river,” Anna added in. “We have no way to get there, even if we had the troops to do so. Plus, I imagine that the garrison troops would have gas masks.”

  “Yeah, true.”

  “Just focus on our job here.”

  Zach walked through the dead streets, stepping over the bodies of stalkers and his own troops everywhere he went. The gas obscured his vision all around, and his protective equipment didn't help matters. Zach felt cut off from the world in his gas mask, which was actually more of a hood. It covered his ears, muffling the ambient noise around him. Even though there were other members of the company around him he felt alone. His only contact with the outside was through his radio link.

  He wondered how the soldiers in the First World War had handled being stuck inside a mask, waiting for the danger to disperse. Did they feel trapped and isolated like he did? Or did they just carry on doing their jobs? At any rate, experiencing this made him appreciate just what they had gone through.

  A minute later they linked up with the remnants of Redd Foxx Company. All of them were a pitiful sight, Zach thought to himself. Out of almost one hundred fifty troops they had started the expedition with, they barely had around fifty left. There were more troops with Barghest and Liz's squads, but that still meant that they had lost almost half their force.

  “Well, we're in a fix,” Danny said.

  “Tell me about it,” Zach replied.

  “We've faced odd like this,” Gavin said. “Remember when the boss at Lerna Bastion wiped half of our force out in ten minutes?”

  “Yeah, but we've lost that many and we haven't even run into the boss yet,” Javy said.

  “Still, they're tough odds, but they're nothing that we can't overcome with some skill, confidence and good planning,” Gray's voice said over the link. Zach couldn't identify him in the crowd.

  “Only one way to find out,” Zach said.

  Anna nodded. “OK, we link up with the rest of Ghost Battalion and then we drive toward the center. Be ready for anything, and do whatever you need to do in order to succeed. Move out.”

  It took another five minutes for them to link up with Barghest Company's rearguard. The gas had started to thin out as they walked, though everyone was hesitant to take their equipment off. Most of those who had been wounded in the earlier attack had died because the medics lacked the proper equipment.

  At least they could be thankful for the quiet that had fallen over the district. The stalkers were nowhere to be found. Zach assumed that they had fallen back to regroup. At any rate, they probably had some trick up their sleeve that they hadn't shown yet.

  Nora found him as their squads met up. “Heard you guys took a beating.”

  “More like we stumbled into something we shouldn't have and got burned,” Zach said. He shook his head. “One mistake and it cost us almost half of the battalion.”

  “Can we still get artillery support?” Nora asked.

  Zach shrugged and started to take off his gas mask. “I'm not sure we want to try that right now. We have no clue what's inside any of the structures. For all we know this place is sitting on a gigantic bomb.”

  “OK. Well, we'll keep pushing forward.”

  Zach turned his attention back to his troops as they continued to press toward the center point of the district. They needed to take area, and then hold it for a certain amount of time. If they managed to accomplish that feat then the district was theirs and the enemy would stop spawning. But approaching the point would also trigger the area's boss.

  He wondered what it could be. So far Hydra had run into a variety of bosses: air units, elite infantry and armored vehicles had been present in the last three places they had taken. But that was when they were dealing with a regular military. What could be here? What could the stalkers be hiding that was as dangerous as a tank or an attack helicopter?

  The central structure loomed ahead of them. From this distance Zach could see that there were solar panels on the roof of the building. Zach wondered if Hephaestus could reverse engineer them.

  “Look alive. There's a ton of stalkers ahead,” Selene told them over the radio link.

  “No surprise there,” Zach heard Gavin say from his left.

  Sure enough, a horde of stalkers came into view as they advanced closer. But for some reason, they seemed to be holding back. Many of them were looking back at the building behind them. Others were facing the Hydra troops, brandishing their weapons and screeching something.

  “Why are they not attacking?” Xavier asked.

  “Maybe they're waiting for a signal?” Liz suggested.

  “Well, then what kind of signal? They don't seem to be the type that form complex plans.”

  Zach was about to say something when a noise in front of them cut off his thoughts. A door on the front of the building was opening, slowly but surely rising off the ground. He could feel the tension in the air growing with every second.

  “Here comes the boss, I think,” Selene said.

  “Ghost, be ready for the fight,” Anna ordered.

  The door finally opened and something started to step out.

  “Oh crap,” Zach said when he saw what was coming. He couldn't imagin
e how this situation could get worse.

  Then it charged.

  CHAPTER 18

  Demigod

  The forward squad didn't even have a chance. They blazed away desperately, but the boss simply shrugged off their shots and tore through them.

  Nora watched from her spot further back, horrified at what she was seeing. They had expected the stalkers to have a boss of some sort. A champion was likely, an especially big and tough one. What they weren't expecting was this.

  The thing in front of them was humanoid, but it wasn't a stalker. It wasn't even organic. It stood on two legs and moved like a person, but it was at least eight feet tall and looked like it was constructed out of some sort of armor plating. The entire thing was black with blood red markings all over its shell. Each arm had a huge blade attached.

  There was no mistaking it. The boss here wasn't a stalker. It was a suit of powered armor.

  “How the heck do they have something like that working?” Danny exclaimed over the radio.

  “Worry about that later. Kill it!” Anna ordered.

  Easier said than done, Nora thought to herself. Most of their weapons were completely useless. Bullets had pinged harmlessly off of its shell. She didn't think that grenades would do much better, either.

  And the havoc it was causing was very, very real. Selene's squad had been cut down in the span of a few seconds. The mech wasn't done, either. It charged into the next group of Barghest troops trying to fend it off. Anyone in its way was smashed, trampled or torn in half, whether they were human or stalker.

  Nora got on the radio. “Lone Wolf, are you there?”

  “I'm here,” Miko replied.

  “Can you snipe the view port on that thing?” she asked.

  “Are you crazy?” Miko asked her. “First, it's a moving target, so that's going to be pretty hard. Second, it's probably armored well enough that a sniper bullet isn't going to do much. And third, even if I could I don't have my rifle with me. This burst fire gun isn't going to do much.”

  “Can you try anyhow?” Nora pleaded. “We don't have many options right now.”

  “You're going to owe me drinks if I die because of this,” Miko told her.

  “I'll get Zack to foot the bill.”

  That elicited a laugh. “Well, that's your choice. I'll try, but don't expect anything much.”

  Nora brought her gun up to bear and started firing into the crowd of stalkers. The mech might be invulnerable, but the rest of the enemies certainly weren't. Even poor shots could kill the stalkers clustered around the base of the mech.

  Some of the others had the same idea. Stalkers started to fall, scythed down by machine gun fire and head shots. Someone launched a grenade at the armored suit. It bounced off harmlessly, but the ensuing explosion killed and maimed a dozen stalkers.

  “Keep pouring it on,” Karen's voice came on the radio.

  “What good is that going to do?” Allen asked over the link.

  “Ghost Battalion, this is Wolf Lead,” Zach said over the link. “We're going to try to clear out as many of the stalkers as we can. Once we thin them out we're going to mount a charge on the armored suit and then try to disable it with explosive charges.”

  “That's complete suicide,” Neil said. The survivors from Spectre had caught up to them.

  “Then it's a classic Black Wolf move, then,” Liz said with a hint of amusement.

  “Do you guys have any better ideas?” Danny asked.

  “Aside from running for our lives?” Nora said.

  “We're not leaving,” Zach said firmly.

  “Didn't think we would be,” Nora replied. She snapped off a shot at another stalker's head.

  “Barghest, Redd Foxx, our job is to try to clear the path for Black Wolf,” Anna ordered. “The stalkers are in our way. We have guns. Slaughter them.”

  Barghest did its best to comply, even as the mech charged at them again. More troops fell to its whirling blades, but others continued to blast away at the surrounding stalkers. For a while it seemed like there was no end to them, but they gradually started to thin out.

  “OK, we're moving,” Zach said. “Black Wolf, let's go!”

  The remains of Black Wolf stood up and charged, heedless of the danger in front of them. Nora felt a bit of admiration as she watched them move. Then she saw another group of stalkers charging into the fray.

  This could ruin everything. If Black Wolf was stuck in close combat then they wouldn't get the opportunity to try their grenade attack. Their only chance to win this thing would be gone in a flash, and the rest of them would be massacred.

  She quickly switched her radio channel. “All yellows, with me. CHARGE!”

  Nora took off toward the approaching horde of stalkers, hoping that her platoon was behind her. If it wasn't then she wouldn't live long enough to complain about it.

  She toggled her gun to full auto and sprayed a burst as she ran. Nora didn't see if it hit anything. It didn't matter at this point anyhow. A few more steps and she was in close combat.

  One stalker took the butt of her gun to the face. She smashed at another one, trying to do everything she could with an empty gun. In hindsight she should have fixed her bayonet, but there hadn't been time. Besides, her real goal had been to district the enemy long enough for Black Wolf to close in for the kill. If she had to go down fighting, so be it. She was doing her part for the good of the company, and the struggle thrilled her.

  Stalkers around her started to fall like leaves, cut down by bullets or smashed aside with rifle butt and hatchet. The rest of her platoon had arrived and was laying into the horde. Nora admired their skill for a brief second. They had picked up on the savagery of hand-to-hand combat and were using that knowledge to its full effect. Barghest was still very raw, but they were effective nonetheless.

  “Thanks yellows,” Zach said over the radio. “We'll take it from here.”

  As the rest of the stalkers were killed or driven back Nora took the opportunity to watch Black Wolf go to work. Danny stood in front of the mech with his platoon, drawing its attention and blazing away with his machine gun. The remnants of Xavier and Javy's squads blazed away as well, though between them they barely had twenty troops, and some were from Ryan's squad. Ryan was nowhere to be found.

  As Bravo Wolf was drawing the mech's attention, Alpha Wolf was trying to make a flanking maneuver. A few stalkers charged at them but were quickly cut down. Logan and Ethan tried to hold their ground while Gavin's squad prepared for their charge.

  Suddenly the mech turned around and started to charge toward Alpha Wolf Platoon. Nora watched in disbelief as Ethan was skewered on the end of one of the blades. Two more of his squad were cut down by the other, and then with another sweep Alpha 2 ceased to exist. Logan tried to rally his few remaining troops with the aid of Zach, but then the thing charged right at them. Logan primed a grenade and tried to stick it to the mech, but the armored suit was much too fast.

  Zach dodged out of the way with a few others. He aimed his launcher at the mech and fired. It did nothing.

  Nora suddenly found herself sprinting toward the carnage, though she didn't know what she was going to do to help against that monstrosity. It didn't matter; they were from her company, and she was going to win or die fighting shoulder to shoulder with them all.

  “Get back!” Zach shouted as he saw her approach, but she ignored him.

  Nora skidded to a halt in front of the central building and took aim at the enemy's view port. Miko was right, judging from the amount of abuse it had taken; she could fire it all day without doing a thing. She was owed a beer for effort, at least.

  Still, bullets were capable of doing one thing. Nora raised her carbine and shot off a burst at the enemy's view port. It turned toward her and prepared to charge.

  “Are you crazy?” Zach asked.

  Nora didn't answer him. She didn't care what the mech was going to do to her, because she had gotten exactly what she wanted. The thing's attention was totally
focused on her. And that created an opening.

  From behind the mech Gavin charged in, grenade in hand. He closed the distance rapidly and reached down. To Nora it looked like he was going to try to cripple one of the legs. It was a good idea. A crippled enemy that relied on close combat would be easier to deal with. Gavin reached for it...

  And was promptly cut in two.

  “No!” she shouted involuntarily.

  Nora couldn't believe it. With almost uncanny speed and sense the mech had turned on a dime and hacked its attacker in two. Both halves of Gavin tumbled to the ground.

  Then the mech turned around and charged straight at her.

  Firing at it was futile, and staying out here was certain death. Nora sprinted toward the central building and dove through the open front door. Something landed on top of her.

  “Sorry,” Zach said as he stood up and helped her up.

  The mech was bashing at the doorway, trying to get inside. One of the blades came flying through the door and missed Nora's face by mere inches. But the machine was too big to fit inside this doorway.

  Someone riddled it with bullets. The mech turned around and headed back toward source of the gunfire.

  “What do we do now?” Nora asked. “I think the game is up.”

  “Not until we're dead,” Zach told her.

  She nodded. “OK, maybe there's something in here that can help us.”

  The interior was dark and smelled of decay and blood. Nora switched on her gun light and looked around. What she saw took her breath away.

  “Look,” she said, pointing her light at the ceiling.

  There were hooks in here as well, all of them filled with bodies of various sorts of creatures, including humans. Nora winced.

  “What's going on here?”

  “What's with their obsession with hanging bodies from hooks?” Zach asked.

  Nora started to walk deeper into the complex. She noticed that there were tables set up against some of the walls covered with bones. They seemed to be arranged in a particular pattern.

  “Looks like some kind of ritual,” Nora said.

  “Then is this a temple?” Zach asked.

  “Maybe.”