Black Wolf

by Mitchell T. Jacobs

  He suddenly lurched forward and slammed into the ground, still a few yards from the alley. It felt like someone had hit his ankle with a sledgehammer. It took Zach a moment to realize he had been shot. He was shocked at how much it actually hurt. Zach tried to get up, but the pain shot through his leg, and he fell.

  Zach felt himself being lifted. Through the smoky haze he could see Selene and Xavier firing down the street on full auto. He felt himself being hoisted onto the shoulders of two others, presumably Will and Gwen, and then they started moving forward through the alley.

  “Rally at my position,” he heard Anna say through the radio. “I'll patch him up as best as I can.”

  Will and Gwen helped him over the wall, then grabbed him again and started carrying him toward the gas station. He heard the sharp report of a rifle come from that direction, then another.

  “Selene, where are you at?” Anna asked.

  “We're about to come over the wall,” came the reply.

  “Be quick about it. They're starting to come in force. I'm coming down to meet the rest of you. As soon as I heal him, we make a run for it.”

  “Understood.”

  Will and Gwen dragged him the rest of the way into the gas station. Anna was waiting for them with her medical kit already prepped.

  “Hold on a second,” Anna said as she started to bandage his wound. The methods of first aid and healing in the game would be terribly ineffective at best in the real world, or would actually kill the patient, but it was a convenient way to symbolize the use of healing powers. Zach felt the pain start to subside the more she bandaged.

  “Alright, can you walk?” she asked.

  Zach stood up and tested the ankle. “Not exactly comfortable, but yeah, I can walk.”

  Anna activated her radio. “We run for the ATVs and head back the way we came. GO!”

  Zach heard two more shots from the roof before Jonas and Miko swung down through the hole. Will leaned out the door and fired a burst at the squad of NPC that had started to advance on them. Selene and Xavier sprinted through the doorway.

  “We're going to need cover fire,” Selene said. “Our group should grab the ATVs while Redd Foxx holds here and fends them off. We can swing back and pick them up and make a quick getaway.

  “Fine with me,” Anna said. “Make sure you come back for us.”

  “Wouldn't dream of leaving you,” Selene said. “Are we ready? OK, move!”

  Xavier went first, then Selene, then Miko. Zach brought up the rear. Few bullets came in their direction as they sprinted for the ATVs. Redd Foxx was doing a good job of putting up cover fire for them. The area around the ATVs was clear. Hurriedly, Black Wolf mounted up on their vehicles and started them up.

  “We'll be there in a minute,” Zach heard Selene say. “Pair up, the same as last time. Make sure you're as fast as possible. We have one shot at this.”

  “Got it,” Anna said.

  Black Wolf roared down the highway, toward the smoke, the bullet and the gunfire. The enemy's numbers were beginning to tell. Despite Redd Foxx's best efforts, there simply weren't enough of them to hold off the sheer number of enemy soldiers that were present. There was at least a platoon advancing on them.

  “We'll be out in front in five seconds,” Selene warned through the radio.

  “Alright. GO! GO!” Anna ordered.

  Zach saw the door swing open. Gwen and Will came out first, followed by Anna, and finally Jonas. He brought his ATV to a screeching halt next to one of the ruined gas pumps. Bullets were cracking all around. Hurriedly, Zach took the carbine off his back and loaded a grenade into the launcher. He made a quick peek down the sights and fired it at the advancing horde. It came up just short, but it forced many to go to the ground or back into cover. Will took advantage of the distraction to leap on the passenger seat. Zach slung his carbine back over his shoulder and gunned the motor. He made a sharp turn, nearly tipping the vehicle over, then sped back down the other side of the road.

  “Everyone make it?” Zach asked.

  Will glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah. They're all behind us.”

  “Everyone rendezvous back at Black Wolf headquarters,” Selene said over the radio. “Don't stop for anything.”

  “Well, that was certainly fun,” Will said. “I have almost no ammo left.”

  “We'll replace what you shot off,” Zach told him. His mind was turning. That town was going to be a very difficult obstacle.

  CHAPTER 11

  Accord

  Anna had prepared a detailed scouting report from the information they had collected from their reconnaissance mission. The town is not fortified, but it is guarded by heavy weapons emplacements and traps. Many of the traps themselves are rigged to prevent tampering by mine clearing teams. Troop strength is estimated at around a company, and all troops are heavily armed. The attacking force will need to be well armed and have a number of engineers in order to clear the minefields.

  “Sounds charming,” David said as he read over the report. “I understand that you got yourself shot in the process of exploring the town?”

  “Yeah, it didn't end so well,” Zach admitted. He and Nora were meeting with Sacred Sword and Redd Foxx at Sacred Sword's base. Selene and Danny were in the south exploring a bunker with the rest of Black Wolf.

  “I think we can use it as a forward outpost,” Anna said. She was here with her adjunct, Liz. “If we're serious about making a push toward Indianapolis, that will provide us with a good staging area to work with. Plus, I think it will provide good experience for all of us. We need to learn to work together.”

  “Agreed,” David said. “I feel that we have a good working relationship with you.” Sacred Sword had been providing support for Redd Foxx's scouting missions. They would send a heavily armed team as backup for the scouts and would extract them if they ran into trouble.

  “I'd like to be able to develop that type of relationship between our companies as well,” Zach said.

  “I don't think that should be too much of a problem,” David said. “Given the size of your company, it's not like you'll have a lot of dissenting voices to deal with. That's not meant as a slight to Black Wolf,” he added disarmingly.

  Zach shrugged. “It's the truth. We're not a very large company.” There had been talk about trying to add more members to Black Wolf. Having more people would allow them more freedom in their operations, and meant that they could provide more to the alliance. Redd Foxx and Sacred Sword both had over fifty members, which made Black Wolf's ten look paltry in comparison. But on the other hand, adding more members would end up diluting the company. One of Zach's favorite things about Black Wolf was that he could really get to know everyone. He would know how they fought, what their tendencies were, and how they viewed things. Adding more members might lessen that intimacy.

  And regardless of their numbers, Black Wolf would always play a major role in any alliance due to the vast sums of money they earned. Other companies that specialized in fighting would shoulder the brunt of the work on the front lines, but without the credits to buy bullets and equipment they were severely hamstrung. Black Wolf would probably end up buying a majority of the equipment for the alliance, and that gave them leverage. Redd Foxx and Sacred Sword both understood that reality, and would treat them as equals instead of as a bank. It remained to be seen what the other companies would do.

  “From what I've heard, Black Wolf seems to excel in small teams. Sort of like a commando unit,” David commented. “That could be useful.”

  “So, how do we want to take care of the town?” Zach asked.

  “I think we need to have an overall commander, first of all,” David said. “If we're going to be effective, we need to have a clear chain of command. One of us serves as the commanding officer, and the other two are sub-commanders.”

  “Ah. Do you want to be commander?” Zach asked.

  “Actually, I think it should be you,” Anna said.

  “Yeah, I'd agree with that t
oo,” David said.

  “Um, I'm flattered, but why? I thought there would be a little more dissension.”

  “I was commander in the last mission, so it's your turn,” Anna said. “Plus, I'm better as a recon commander than in a straight battle.”

  “OK, that makes sense, but what about you?” Zach asked David.

  He grinned sheepishly. “Well, the truth of the matter is that I'd like to be in the thick of the fighting, and I can't do that if I'm in overall command.”

  Zach laughed. “Fair enough. I'm not eager to get shot again, so overall command is fine with me. But I'm not coming up with this plan on my own. I don't know the strengths and weaknesses of your companies very well, and I want to make sure we get this right.”

  “I think we need to neutralize the towers,”Anna said. “I also think we should attack from at least two directions so they have to split their forces.”

  “We can probably snipe the gunners in the towers, but we don't have any good way to actually destroy the towers without getting close,” David said. “And then there's the landmine problem. Sacred Sword has eight engineers, and we have minesweepers for them. The problem is that they're going to be extremely vulnerable while they're sweeping, especially to the towers. I'm not sure we can do it without getting them killed.”

  “Redd Foxx has two engineers,” Liz spoke up. “They can sweep, but they're trained for infiltrating, so they're going to be slow.”

  “And we have one engineer,” Nora said. She had been oddly silent this entire time, frequently checking her menu.

  “Which would be me, and we all know how well my sweeping went the last time,” Zach said.

  “Hey, I got good experience for healing your wound,” Anna said.

  “Could we bring them down with heavy machine gun fire from a distance?” David suggested.

  Anna shook her head. “The towers are pretty well built. I don't think anything short of explosives is going to bring one down.”

  “That means engineers with grenade launchers,” Liz said. “And they'll have to get close to use them. Which means our plan might be over in ten shots.”

  “Aren't there supposed to be missile and rocket launchers for heavies?” David asked.

  “No one has discovered any blueprints for them,” Anna said.

  “We... might have something?” Nora spoke up.

  “Huh?” Zach asked, nonplussed.

  “The rest of our company is exploring a bunker. From our experience, they usually have blueprints in them,” Nora explained.

  “They're also usually swarming with chilus or ryches.” Anna commented. “We stopped trying to get into them when we found out the only way to clear them was with fire.”

  “You can also use armor-piercing bullets,” Zach said. “Both of our heavies are carrying several magazines of them.”

  “Nothing like shooting away two weeks of earnings,” David commented ruefully. “It must be nice to be swimming in cash.”

  “Back on topic, they think they're getting near the end of the bunker. Selene says it looks like it's a weapons depot, though most of the equipment in there is useless. But she says that there are a lot of what look like missile launchers and the like.”

  “Can they be salvaged?” David asked.

  Nora shook her head. “The bunker looks like it went through a catastrophic explosion in several of the storage compartments. Most of it is just fused metal and plastic, according to her. The only way they can tell is that a few of the launchers were thrown clear, and all of them are pretty badly twisted up.”

  “Even if there is something, do we have any guarantee that we can use it?” Liz questioned.

  “We'd better hope so, otherwise we're back to square one,” Zach said.

  Nora opened here menu again, looking at something. “Well, they found something. But none of them can read it, and neither can I. Can you make sense of this?” she asked.

  Zach received a message from her and opened it up. It was a schematic of some sort. It looked like a tube with some sort of mechanism on the back. There was also plans for a bipod with it, along with something that looked like a shell or a rocket. And there was text included with it as well, highlighted due to his machinist skills.

  “What is it?” Anna asked.

  “I think you both should have copies of this,” Zach said. He sent them all a copy of the codex entry and the schematic itself. “This alliance needs to be built on trust, not just because we have to do this to survive.

  84 mm Recoilless rifle, the description read. Fires 84mm projectiles with range of 500 yards. Is capable of destroying light to medium armored vehicles and fortified emplacements. The weapon can be loaded with various types of ordinance such as fragmentation rounds and bunker buster warheads. It is most effective with a two person crew, but can be operated by a single person at a reduced rate of fire. Requires one point in anti-tank weaponry to use.

  “Man, you weren't kidding about the trust thing,” David said. “That's a pretty powerful weapon you just gave away for free to all of us.”

  “I'd appreciate it if you kept these plans between our three companies for now,” Zach said. “Plus, we either need to have them produced at a fabrication terminal, which is going to be really expensive, or we're going to have to make them ourselves. And look at the resources that it's going to take to build one. Fifty blocks of refined vulcanite ore, and that's only for the launcher, not for the ammo.”

  “Speaking of ammo, it looks like the only type of ammo we have for it is high explosive,” Nora said.

  David shrugged. “Not a versatile weapon, but it should serve our purposes just fine.”

  “The next question is, do we have anyone that can use it?” Liz asked. “I'm guessing that anti-tank is a heavy exclusive class skill, 'cause I can't see it. And has anyone bothered to take it? We haven't had a reason to since the heaviest vehicle in the world right now outside of the city trams is an ATV.”

  “Well, someone could take it once they go up a level,” Anna suggested.

  “They'll need practice on it,” Nora said. “And given the amount of resources we're going to have to put into one of these, it's going to take a while to have them ready to practice, let alone fight. Can we borrow some of your miners? We only have two.”

  “Actually, neither of our companies have any miners,” David said. “We get all of our resources and equipment from Hephaestus Company, in exchange for providing their mining groups with protection. I could probably convince them to get the resources we need to do this, however.”

  They started to plan the operation in detail. The three companies had a combined strength of one hundred twenty eight. Of that number, there were twenty six assaults, twenty two snipers, thirty five soldiers, twenty five heavies, eleven engineers and nine medics. The lack of specialists was concerning. If they lost too many of their mine clearance teams, then they were going to be in trouble. And their lack of of medics was going to tell if they ended up in a prolonged fight.

  They decided to split the attack force into three commands. The first command would be led by David, spearheaded by Sacred Sword. It would have a significant number of soldiers and heavies, and its task was to attack the town head on. The second force would be led by Anna, leading Redd Foxx. They would approach from the forest to the west, using their stealth skills to get as close as possible before attacking. She would have an assault oriented force, built for speed. They would try to get in behind the forces engaging Sacred Sword and hit them in a crossfire.

  The last force would be comprised of Black Wolf and two teams from Sacred Sword and Redd Foxx. They would act as a reserve, reinforcing any section of the attack that needed backup. If need be, they could also stage a diversionary attack from another direction. Zach would not be in overall command of the section, since he was going to be in charge of the entire operation. He would probably put Selene or Danny in charge, though it probably wasn't going to matter since the individual teams were going to operate separatel
y.

  “Do we want to try to take the gas station we were in last time?” Anna asked. “That provides a good vantage point, and we can use it as a command post.”

  “I think that's a good idea,” Zach agreed.

  “Well, I'll defer to your judgment, since you two are the only ones here who've seen the place,” David said. “I'm going to organize Sacred Sword into four man teams. Anyone extra will go into my team.”

  “Actually...” Nora thought aloud. “Would you be able to spare any of your extra troops? I think we also need to have good communications system in place. If we can have, say five or six people, we can use them to coordinate movements with the squad leaders through the radio system. That will also make it easier for Zach to exercise overall command.”

  “That I agree with,” Anna said.

  “I think that's all the planning we can do for now. I'll get in contact with Hephaestus Company to get the materials we need for our heavy weapons,” David said.

  “Pay any price that's reasonable,” Zach said. “You can let them know that they can contact Black Wolf with the bill.”

  “Grand. Let's hope this works.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Other World

  Spring was coming. The snow had melted, and temperatures had risen into the mid fifties. It was still brisk enough to wear a coat, but it felt warm enough after the long and cold winter. Zach had been itching to be outside without exposing himself to the frigid Chicago winter. Right now he was in a fleece and wind pants, oblivious to the breeze or the cold air. He leaped...

  And the ball was swatted away as he shot. Javy laughed and sprinted down the court, stolen shot in hand. He threw a pass toward the bottom of the net. Quick as lightning, Danny snagged it and hit a layup.