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

by Mitchell T. Jacobs

  “Selene, I just saw several marks converge on your position. Are you alright?” Nora asked.

  Selene replied with the non-verbal affirmative through the messaging system.

  “They'll probably miss their patrol before long. Make sure you stay sharp.”

  Selene had to smile when she heard that. What else were they going to do? One lapse of concentration or judgment could mean the deaths of her entire squad, and Selene didn't want to have to retrain her skills if that happened. Better to make enough of an impact and leave than to stay too long and get themselves killed over some pointless fight.

  She wondered what kind of progress Zach's team was making, but Gavin's squad was moving too fast for her to type out a reply. Again, if she needed to know it the others would communicate that information to her. In the meantime, her objective was clear.

  Find the enemy, sneak up on them and then wreak havoc.

  * * *

  They made their way through the rest of no man's land, guided by Miko and Nora's directions and dealing with occasional patrols that crossed their paths. They avoided a few, but most were knifed. They might be just a diversionary force, but Selene wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to weaken Ragnarok's troop strength. Every enemy trooper that had to spend time getting their abilities back up to par was a plus in her book. She'd had enough of dealing with a seemingly endless tied of elite Ragnarok troops. Let them go back to using newbies and amateurs for a bit, or failing that, at least cut down the effectiveness of their veterans.

  Besides, the more bodies they created, the greater chance that someone discovered them and sounded the alarm. This was a distraction after all, and distractions only worked if people noticed them.

  Gavin held up a hand again as they neared the enemy lines. Selene took the time to pause and open up her holographic menu so she could communicate detailed messages to him. Since it was set on stealth mode only she could see the projection. That meant she couldn't use it as a map to guide others, but it was better than nothing.

  Enemy strongpoint ahead. Looks like there's a couple of squads stationed there, the message from Gavin read.

  Selene typed her reply. Are they all there now, or is it just a skeleton crew?

  Gavin made a glance toward the enemy position again, then typed his reply. Looks like it's big enough to house a platoon, but there's only about ten to fifteen enemy troops there. Do we want to go around them, or do we attack them?

  Selene frowned as she thought. Should they try to get deeper into enemy territory, or should they just attack now and cause a distraction? If Zach team was close to completing their objectives they could even use their guns, killing the enemy and then hightailing it back to the safety of their own lines.

  Hold on for a second, she told Gavin, then messaged Nora. What's the status on Zach's end?

  The reply came only a few seconds later. Making steady progress. Should only take about ten more minutes.

  Ten minutes. If they launched an attack now that would give them just enough time to kill the enemy troops in front of them, hightail it out of there and be back to their own lines before anyone was the wiser. Of course, that was totally dependent on them being able to eliminate the enemy without raising the alarm.

  The entire operation had gone better than she expected, though. Zach's team would be finished laying mines, and her team hadn't run into serious opposition. The fact that they'd hadn't been discovered yet pleased her greatly. Maybe their stealth skills were better than they thought. Either that, or they had gotten very lucky this time.

  But they had to press that luck one more time. Selene sent a message to Gavin. Prepare for attack. Infiltration with knives. Use our guns as a last resort. Withdraw back to base when we're finished.

  She received a thumbs up in response. A few seconds and several hand signals later, the unit sprang into action.

  They crept through the rubble and debris in front of the Ragnarok position, being careful to stick to the shadows. Several of the enemy were grouped around a light of some sort. It was so bright through her night vision goggles that Selene tried to avoid looking in that direction and blinding herself. Once she established the positions of the other enemy troops she turned them off, preferring to work with what little light they had at their disposal.

  Selene wondered if Miko had tried to snipe any of them before, or if the light had dissuaded her as well. Whatever the case, she was close enough now to mow down the enemy with one long burst, but that didn't suit their purposes. Their distraction was only meant to put the enemy on edge, not to bring their full wrath and fury down upon them. She certainly didn't want to have to perform a fighting retreat with just one squad, even with cover fire from the troops in the tower.

  As they reached their positions, a countdown timer appeared on her HUD. Once it reached zero they would launch their strike.

  Their method of attack would be quick and brutal: knife the guards on the perimeter as quietly as possible, then kill the rest before they had the opportunity to react. This kind of maneuver relied almost completely on the element of surprise, and one screwup likely mean a face-full of lead.

  Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

  Selene lunged at her target once he turned his back and slammed her knife into his shoulder, behind the clavicle and right at the base of the neck. He let out a grunt and fell like a rock. Selene eased him down, trying to avoid any loud noises.

  Another enemy trooper turned toward her, but almost instantly another Black Wolf soldier was on her. The dark figure slashed her throat, then stabbed her in the back several times for good measure.

  Selene didn't look around to check on the status of the other perimeter guards. She trusted the rest of the squad to do their jobs correctly. Instead, she sprang at the remaining five enemies surrounding the light and pounced on one, slamming him into the ground with a blade in his back.

  She was on her feet immediately, ready to lash out at the others, but others from her unit had caught up and made short work of them. Once quick glance around the area told her that all the enemy guards were dead.

  All that, and it had taken twenty seconds at most to accomplish that. Still as sharp as ever, she thought with some satisfaction.

  “Nice work,” Miko said over the radio.

  Selene smiled, though she couldn't give a verbal response this far into enemy territory. There would be time to brag about their exploits later.

  She opened up her wrist menu and sent a one word message to the rest of the squad. Withdraw.

  And just like ghosts they faded back into the darkness, leaving no trace except a trail of bodies.

  17

  LIFELINE

  “Danny, they're back,” Xavier said over the radio link.

  “Again?” Danny asked with a frown.

  “Again.”

  “Man, they don't want to let up, do they. How many this time?”

  “Looks like a platoon, backed up by three tanks. No flame tanks with them.”

  “Copy that. Are they firing at you?”

  “Yup, but they're really not pressing their attack.”

  Danny nodded. That fit with what they had been doing for the past few days. The afternoon after their minelaying expedition Ragnarok had tried to send an assault force around the southern end of the tower, only to stumble across the minefield. Several of their troops had been severely wounded, and the rest had been cut to pieces by withering fire from the defenders.

  After that the enemy had tried different tactics, sending small units in to harass the defenders with gunfire and the occasional tank attack. Danny could see the method to their strategy. Black Wolf was surrounded and cut off with no way to replenish their ammunition, or so the enemy believed. Under those conditions the attacking force could slowly sap the defenses, forcing them to expend ammunition to fend off every little feint. Once they had sufficiently drained them they would launch their final assault on the fortress.

  But the corridor completely ruined that, Da
nny thought as he looked down the length of the tunnel, watching the incoming cars coming down the rails. All of them were laden with ammunition and supplies, more than enough to supply them for even the worst kind of fighting. Black Wolf could hold their positions and hit the enemy hard.

  Still, they didn't want to give the game away. Ragnarok would get suspicious if Black Wolf just kept throwing huge amounts of firepower back at them, so they needed to weigh pros and cons of hurting the enemy versus revealing their trump card. And that made his next order important.

  “Xavier, give them some counterfire, but don't go overboard. Maybe try to make it seem like we're conserving ammunition,” Danny told him.

  “Roger. Is priority the infantry or tanks?”

  “Tanks,” Danny said. Losing both would hurt in their own way, but with just a platoon present there was no way Ragnarok was going to try to press their attack. Killing the tanks, on the other hand, would force the enemy to manufacture more, taking up precious resources and time, not to mention the fact that they had to get them to the battlefield.

  Barghest and Spectre certainly weren't making that easy, either. The sporadic reports they continued to receive indicated that they had hit another large convoy, destroying over thirty trucks, several tanks and at least a ton of ammunition.

  Logistics, Danny thought to himself as he looked back down the tunnel. That would be the likely tipping point of this battle. Both sides wouldn't falter, even under the worst battlefield conditions. Neither would give up or turn tail and run, and both had their share of tough, elite troops. The question was, who could keep their front lines supplied the best? Even the most elite units were completely worthless if they didn't have ammunition.

  Danny was thankful that they had the underground tunnel. Not only was it their one lifeline to the outside world, but it provided them a covered, concealed route to move supplies, free from the dangers of snipers and artillery.

  “So this is the other side, huh?” Yusuf said as he dismounted the cart. He had come north to inspect the tunnel and the defenses to see that they were holding up properly.

  Danny moved to greet him. “Yeah, this is the other side. Not much, but it works for us.”

  “I see you have the elevators working.”

  Danny glanced back at them. “Yup, they're pretty useful for getting the ammunition to the upper levels. I'd shudder to think what it would be like trying to get crates of mortar shells up fifteen flights of stairs.”

  “What, can't use the exercise?”

  “You're more than welcome to try, if you're so eager,” Danny said lightly.

  “Eh, that's the job of the frontline troops.” Yusuf took another glance around the basement of the tower. “I see we have quite the load to take back as well.”

  “Yeah, anything we can do about those?” Danny asked, looking around at the crates filled with spent shell casings. “Especially during heavy fighting, we're having problems with just keeping the floors clear. We tried piling them into spare corners, but when you're firing ten to fifteen shells a minute from four guns, they tend to disappear quickly.”

  “Hm,” Yusuf said, a thoughtful expression crossing his face. “Well, there's always the option of putting them on the lift and taking them to the basement.”

  “Then we have to have a crew to load and unload them, and we don't have enough troops to spare.”

  “Right. Well, there's always the possibility of making a chute that goes from the upper floors down here, but that's going to take some doing. This entire place is made out of concrete, right?”

  “Yeah, that's right.”

  “Right. So, we'd have to cut holes in the concrete floors before installing the chute, which is going to take some doing. We have to make sure that doesn't undermine the structural integrity of the tower, so that'll take even more time. And then we'd have to manufacture some sort of chute, which means either jury rigging something here or custom building them in Central City.”

  “Which either makes the chute dicey, or will take more time and resources,” Danny concluded. “And I imagine cutting through the concrete isn't going to be quiet either.”

  “Unfortunately no.”

  “Then that settles it. Ragnarok's bound to get curious when they hear construction coming from our side, and the minute they see Hephaestus Company troops here they'll know we have some way to bypass the blockade around the tower. And once they know that, goodbye advantage.”

  “Actually, if you're trying to conserve ammunition then how much of a problem is this going to be?” Yusuf pointed out. “Seems like you won't have much of a problem with it if you're just occasionally trading fire with them.”

  “The problem isn't going to be when we're fighting like this, it's going to be when they launch an all-out assault. We're having enough problems trying to keep enough ammo on the guns to continuously fire. We don't need our gunners tripping over shell casings.”

  “Point,” Yusuf said. He thought for a moment. “How are you storing the shells right now when you're in the middle of a battle? Do you have a set system?”

  “We basically just toss them into a pile wherever we can find space,” Danny said.

  “That might be part of the problem then. What about setting up large crates or bins so you have somewhere you can toss the spent casings?”

  “How do we move them once they're full? Those aren't exactly going to be light,” Danny pointed out.

  “We can probably just put some wheels on the bottom and then install a locking mechanism to keep them from rolling once they're in place. You know, the thing they do with rolling stands in the real world.”

  “How much work is that going to be?”

  “Oh, that's easy. No more than a few hours for several of them, and we can do the work in the basement. No danger of giving ourselves away down here.”

  “If you could do that it would really help,” Danny said. It might not be something dramatic, but every little advantage they could put in their favor could be the one that finally tip the scales. Most people didn't think of it, but tripping and falling in the heat of combat could bring an efficient system to a screeching halt.

  “But man,” Yusuf said as he looked around at the crates again, “you're burning through a ton of 45mm shells. We're lucky we have the rail line and the forges.”

  “Yeah, you're not the only one thinking that.”

  “So how are they holding up? The guns, I mean,” Yusuf said. “We went through some firing trials with Bravehart's help, but we didn't really field test them before you deployed them up here. Too little time, and you needed better anti-tank capabilities for the tower, so...”

  “Yeah, and I'm glad you did,” Danny told him with a grin. “Once you get the hang of them, these things are pretty nasty. I like that it can also fire high explosive shells. We've been using them against infantry as much as against armor.”

  “How does it do against tanks?”

  “It's good enough.” Danny turned and watched the crew unloading fresh crates of bullets and shells, along with fusion batteries, mines, grenades and other supplies. “They're not world-beaters or anything like that, but they'll kill tanks just fine from a proper angle. It won't penetrate the front armor, but the top and sides are fair game. We put them on the fourth floor so they could fire down on the top armor, and they've been working great. Better range than the enemy flame tanks, which is pretty critical.”

  Yusuf nodded. “Ah yes, those. Come across many of them?”

  “In the initial stages yes, but then Ragnarok figured out they couldn't even get close enough to use the flamethrowers before we blasted them to pieces. After that they switched to mostly using regular tanks, because at least those could fire back at us.”

  “I can't imagine that would have done them much good, not against something with walls like this. Even the windows look like they're firing slits.”

  “Yeah, it looks like one of those flak towers in Europe.”

  “That's what Paige said
,” Yusuf agreed. “Guess the designers didn't just take their inspiration from the buildings inside the real world cities.”

  “Can't complain much about that though. This thing will hold up as long as we're here to defend it.”

  Deep down, though, Danny questioned whether that was really true. After all, Black Wolf had taken the tower by a storm assault. Even if the defenses had been increased, the enemy would certainly bring more than just a company to the fight. They had to know by now that nothing less than several hundred troops backed up by armor and artillery would bring the fortress to its knees.

  And if they brought it, what then? The tower was Hydra's focal point in the Cudahy District, serving as both the last bastion of defense and the likely focal point of their counterattack. If they lost it then they were probably dead in the water, possibly stuck fighting in this district for several more months. Could they afford to give Ragnarok the time to consolidate their hold on the rest of the city?

  Danny hated to admit it, but if they lost the tower they might be stuck fighting in Milwaukee for a year or more. All the while, their enemy would have the opportunity to prepare a counterstrike. And who was to say that forces from some of the other hubs wouldn't take the opportunity to stab Hydra in the back while they were distracted.

  All in all, it made for a very uncomfortable situation. There wasn't much they could do about it, though. Nothing, but to keep fighting as hard as possible and hold their ground. Somehow, someway the other parts of the alliance would find a way to turn the tables.

  “So,” he said to Yusuf, “anything interesting in the pipeline? Any new gadgets that you're testing?”

  Yusuf looked over at him. “Keep this quiet, but we do have something. Not for you, though. You guys have been getting most of the toys lately.”

  Danny looked down at the assault rifle slung to his chest, fitted with a bipod and drum magazine to act as a light machine gun.