Werewolf: A World at War Novel (World at War Online Book 4)

by Mitchell T. Jacobs

  Raven 2 and Raven 5 had destroyed the bridge. Instruments were smashed, the windows were shattered and bodies lay strewn about. Luckily, it was fixable given enough time, and it looked like the steering and engine controls had survived storm of lead. Even so, Hephaestus probably wasn't going to be very happy with their wanton destruction.

  But they had the most important part of the ship.

  “Here we are,” Zach said as he climbed aboard the now dormant ship.

  Everyone had performed their roles admirably. Bravo Wolf had lured the enemy out perfectly, Alpha Wolf had stormed the ship, and Raven provided excellent fire support and skillful handling of their river craft.

  “They sure did a number on it,” Lex commented as he climbed up.

  “It looks like it, but the steering and engine are intact,” Danny said as he walked up. “That's all we need in order to get it into port, and we also have the schematic. We can fix the damage.”

  “Casualties?” Zach asked him.

  “Relatively light,” Danny said. “Twelve dead, and another eight wounded, but we have more than enough medics to treat them.”

  “Great job, by the way,” Zach said.

  “My pleasure,” Danny replied with a grin.

  Evy joined them. “So what now?”

  Zach looked toward the south. “Now we aim for the city.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Wildland

  CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

  “That sure didn't take long,” Nora commented as she walked along the deck of the ship.

  “I know,” Paige said. “It's a wonder what we can do with a schematic and the right materials. This is just straight repair. Nothing really tricky.”

  “Still,” Nora said, looking at the crews, “You have what, twenty people working here? You'd think that command would want them at the Forge making assault guns and APCs.”

  “You'd think,” Paige agreed. “But my orders were to take a crew this size to repair the ship. It's the lynchpin of the plan in the north, after all. And you should be glad. It means you can go north as well.”

  Nora nodded happily. There was easily enough room on the deck to fit all of the mech suits, and if they sailed near the Michigan coast they were out of range of Ragnarok's air force. She could be back in the thick of things with Black Wolf in no time, if everything went according to plan. If.

  “How are you guys going to get ammunition and supplies up here?” she asked.

  “We're going to extend the rail link up to this point,” Paige told her. “The people not in my engineering team will be doing that.”

  “And can they guard it?”

  “We're fine,” Paige said, “though we're pretty lucky that they banned vehicles in Old Chicago. Otherwise, this might be a problem.”

  “Yeah, it would,” Nora agreed.

  Old Chicago was considered a neutral zone, and thus none of the alliances could engage each other in the immediate area around the city. It meant that Ragnarok would have to make a push from the area around Fort Odin if it wanted to reach Hydra territory, and that would lead them into the teeth of Hydra's defensive fortifications. They could send infantry units through the city, but without armored support it was likely they would be cut off in enemy territory.

  Besides, Ronin's alliance might take the opportunity to sucker punch them while they were occupied, and Ragnarok wouldn't have any way to respond if its troops were far to the east. Even so, they probably needed at least one defensive fortification to protect their newly created port. Nora said as much.

  Paige frowned. “Not that I'm disagreeing with you, but that's probably low on our list of priorities. We have the rail link, we have Lerna Bastion, the north, and we'll probably have to replace losses after the next battle in Indianapolis. And there's only so many of us to do it all.”

  “Any luck with recruitment?”

  “They're trickling in, but it's slow,” Paige admitted. “Certainly not enough to keep up with the demand for our skills.”

  “The 2.0 patch might help,” Nora offered. “If every player can do resource gather and crafting without skill points, you'll have a much larger recruitment pool.”

  “The mentality doesn't always fit, though,” Paige said. “Don't you have people in your company that spent skill points in mining and metallurgy?”

  “Yeah, and they were Danny and Selene, interestingly enough,” Nora said. “Javy has some skills in the pharmaceutical tree, but your ammo production kind of made his skill obsolete.”

  “Hey, overdrive sells for a good price on the market,” Paige said. “It bought several of our ammo presses.”

  “Problem being that we can't mass produce it because we can't get the resources,” Nora said. “And it doesn't help that Ragnarok cut down on their usage.”

  “I'm surprised it took them so long to do it,” Paige commented. They walked past a crew working on the main gun.

  “They were naïve. Like we all were. That was back before we realized the difference between this game and some of the others. Economic warfare is really possible in this world, and it took people forever to realize it.”

  “You realized it right off the bat, from what I heard,” Paige said.

  Nora shrugged. “Well, the same goes for you guys. You might be the most powerful company in the entire region. Or, at least the one with the most impact.”

  Paige smiled. “That's flattering.”

  “But true,” Nora added. “There's no way we would be this far without you guys imagining and building everything. And I guess Ragnarok might have you to thank as well. You sparked an arms race, after all.”

  “Never thought about it that way, but I can see how it's true,” Paige said. She stopped then headed back toward the gangplank in the middle of the ship. “OK, we might want to get out of the way.”

  “How come?” Nora asked, following her.

  “They're about to mount the main gun on the ship, and it's going to hurt if it hits us.”

  Hephaestus had one working crane at the port, which they would use to load cargo onto the ship. It was also useful to move heavy equipment onto it as well. Say, for instance, a heavy artillery piece.

  “Did you make a new 3 inch gun?” Nora asked.

  Paige shook her head. “We could, but we'd have to alter our production line in order to do so. Not really worth it for a specialty piece like that. Plus, Yusuf thought you guys might want some extra firepower on board.”

  “That would be nice,” Nora agreed. Then she caught a glimpse of the gun as it was raised. “A 155?”

  “Heaviest thing we can put on the ship,” Paige said with a grin. “Don't worry, it won't mess with the performance of the ship. We already made sure of that with the schematic.”

  “Speaking of that, can you build another one, now that you have an actual one to reference?” Nora asked.

  Paige paused for a moment. “We can, but we need a drydock. And I don't see us getting our hands on one anytime soon, unless it's up in the north at Green Bay. And then there's a whole other mess of problems with that.”

  “I'm guessing resource gathering would be one of them?”

  “Yeah, I don't imagine you'd be sending mining parties out into that mess anytime soon,” Paige replied. “We'll do what we can, but I can't promise you anything. It'll help once we take the city.”

  “Right.”

  “Do you guys have a plan in place yet?”

  Nora shrugged. “It's touch and go, at the moment. There's several different ideas being bounced around right now, and none of them are solid. Some of them want to take the city in one go. Some of them want to take one of the districts first, then grab the other one at a later time. Then there's debates about whether we should attack from the lake, the land side, or both at the same time.”

  “Sounds fun,” Paige replied with a hint of sarcasm.

  “Tell me about it. I guess the one good thing about it is that we have Thorn and Myrmidon Companies, which we weren't planning on. That give us a lot
of extra troops, and from what I've heard they seem to be pretty good fighters.”

  “That's certainly good,” Paige said. “We'll help whatever way we can, but it's probably not going to be very useful.”

  Nora turned back and looked at the ship as they reached dry land. “Well, you've made a pretty good contribution already. Plus, we need bullets and munitions, so you have that as well.”

  “I meant more along the lines of in the field help,” Paige said. “I know we're not the best fighters, but we still might have skills that could be useful on the battlefield.”

  “Like combat engineers?” Nora said. “Yeah, if we could figure out something that required your expertise, that would definitely be a good thing. Maybe you should form up a dedicated unit for those kinds of task. You never know when it might come in handy.”

  “It's an interesting thought, but there's no way we can do it now,” Paige said. “There's way too much for us to build.”

  “Well, stash it in the back of your mind until it's possible,” Nora said. “I mean, who would have thought that I'd be leading an exoskeleton platoon right now?”

  “Will do.”

  Nora reached her ATV and climbed aboard. “Well, I have a planning meeting, and I need to be at the bastion so I can talk to them up north.”

  “Have fun,” Paige said.

  “Oh, I'm sure I'll have tons,” Nora replied. She started up the engine and sped off toward the southwest.

  “What do you have for us?” Anna asked over the radio.

  Nora sorted through the notes in her wrist menu. She could have used the map table in the command center, but she didn't want to monopolize its capabilities, since Hydra only had two of them. Instead, she had made notes and then occupied a small side room, furnished with just a table, chair and a boosted radio set. With that she had everything she needed to conduct the meeting.

  “You couldn't have picked an easier spot?” Nora complained.

  “Considering it's really the only major city in the region, our choices were pretty limited,” Liz said.

  “Right. Well, this isn't going to be easy, which you were probably all expecting. The city is made up of two districts, divided by the river. There's walls surrounding the city on three sides, and the lake touches the fourth. There's also the Fox River, but that might not be as useful as you might think. It's pretty heavily guarded.”

  “Is land or water our best option?” Neil asked.

  Nora sighed.”In all honesty, I really don't know. There's too many variables. Hitting them from the lake means a large part of our attack force could be destroyed before they get into battle. It's not like the Eagle Creek landing, because these beaches are defended. But if you want to go the other way, you have to contend with the walls. And we don't have enough artillery.”

  “Can we infiltrate?” Liz suggested.

  “I don't think that's a good idea,” Nora said. “From the data I've gathered from your reports, the patrols up there seem to be a whole lot more aggressive, for some reason. It makes it far too easy for you to get caught, and we don't exactly have a way to bail you out.”

  “OK, so there's no obvious option,” Zach spoke up. “But if we had to choose one of the options, what one do you think gives us the greatest chance of success?”

  “I really don't know,” Nora replied.

  “What does your gut tell you?”

  She thought about that for a moment. What did her gut tell her? Her brain kept pointing out all the ways that something could go wrong, but every plan had its merits, as well. But could she push aside her critical thoughts to follow what her instincts told her?

  “The amphibious assault,” Nora said. “Preceded by a ton of preparation, because there's no way we're going to get ashore without it.”

  “Do you have anything more?” Anna asked.

  Nora scrolled through the notes in her menu. “I think that taking the city in one go might be possible, but I think we also should hedge our bets. Maybe we take one district, and then if we're still in fighting shape we can launch the next attack immediately afterward.”

  “That's going to be tough on the front line troops,” Karen commented.

  Nora nodded, though she knew the others couldn't see the gesture. “We can rotate our troops some. Between Ghost Battalion, Thorn Company and Myrmidon Company we have over four hundred troops, plus air and naval support.”

  “How many of them will be left after we fight the boss?” Karen argued. “We lose a lot of troops when we try to take a district, and I don't think that this time is going to be any different. I just don't think that we'll have the strength to make the second push.”

  “OK, then we secure one of the districts, and then we prepare another attack to take the rest of the city,” Zach said. “The river is a natural barrier, and we'll still have the base we need regardless of whether we control both parts of the city or just one.”

  “But then we have another enemy on our flank, and that'll reduce our ability to go after Ragnarok,” Neil said.

  “I'm going to side with Neil on this one as well,” Karen said. “This just seems like it'll open up yet another front for us to be fighting on, and I'm not sure we can handle that.”

  “We'll be fine,” Zach argued. “It's not like it's going to be a long term thing, anyhow. We'd just rest a little, regroup and then attack.”

  “Assuming we have the supplies and equipment needed to do that,” Karen pointed out. “Who's to say that we won't lose them, especially when the boss decides to show up.”

  Nora had to admit, it was a valid point. Hydra troops were tough, and Ghost Battalion had some of the best units in the entire world, but the NPC bosses that guarded the central capture points were in a league of their own. Hydra had never lost a battle against one, but they had pulled many of the off by the skin of their teeth. And for all they knew, one of the Green Bay bosses would slaughter them as well. In fact, at this point it was safer to bet on that happening.

  “And once again we're at an impasse,” Robbie finally commented. “Come on guys, we need to figure out something. Sitting on our hands isn't going to do us much good.”

  “Neither is losing all of our equipment in a half-planned attack,” Karen said.

  “Right, I agree, but we need to do something. Otherwise, why are we even bothering?”

  “OK, maybe we're looking at this the wrong way,” Anna said. “Let's assume for a moment, that we're going to attack one district, and one district only. Which side of the river should we choose?”

  “East,” Nora said immediately.

  “Well, that was fast. Why?”

  “Because it's in the best strategic position. It's much easier to move stuff between Sturgeon Bay and the east side of the city by the land route. If we took the west side we'd either need to use the ship, which is a waste of valuable resources, or we'd need to circle all the way around the city, which means venturing into the marshlands, and those don't look too friendly.”

  “Yeah, I can vouch for that,” Liz said. “I've already had three things try to eat me this week.”

  “That's something to think about as well,” Neil said. “How dangerous are the marshlands and forests going to be for us? We might lose more troops to wild animals than we do to enemy bullets. And it's probably not going to be good if we're getting killed by three different factions.”

  “If you can call the wild beasts a faction,” Robbie commented.

  “You know what I mean.”

  Nora cycled through her notes. “Well, I can answer that, actually. Thanks in no small part to some good reports by Redd Foxx, in fact. Thanks for that, by the way. It makes analyzing things so much easier.”

  “No problem,” Anna replied.

  “Thorn Company also gave us some good info,” she said. “Here it is. Marshlands are to be considered extremely dangerous. Terrain hazards include quicksand, unstable ground, deep pools of water with no visible bottom and dense undergrowth. Hostile fauna encountered, including f
en wolves, ryches, large snakes, carnivorous fish, mutant spiders and carrion bird swarms.”

  “And that's what's surrounding the city?” Neil asked.

  “Not all of it,” Nora informed him. “But a lot of it, yes.”

  “Half of our patrols are going to get killed on their way south, then.”

  “Not exactly,” Anna cut in. “Thorn Company has been able to get past them in spite of the danger. We can learn some tricks from them. Besides, our equipment is a lot better. And we have our fieldcraft skills as well.”

  “This might push them to the limit.”

  “Then this is the perfect time for us to get better then, isn't it?” Anna pointed out.

  “OK, I'll concede that,” Neil said. He sounded far more reassured.

  Zach got them back on track. “So, let's just focus on taking one district at a time. We can make a plan to take the second district as well, and we can implement it whenever we think we're ready. That could be immediately, or it could be a few days down the road. But at least that'll give us flexibility.”

  “I agree,” Anna said. “And flexibility is going to be our key to success.”

  “So, first problem,” Liz remarked. “How are we going to take care of the shore defenses so we can get from the lake to the land? Because I'm not looking forward to trying to swim ashore if my boat gets sunk.”

  “Do we know what they have for antiaircraft defenses?” Karen asked.

  Robbie answered. “Surprisingly, they're fairly light, from what we can tell. They're concentrated on the harbor, and there's a heavier cluster around the airfield, but that's in the west district. The east end is pretty light, all things considered.”

  “You might be our best bet for taking out the defenses,” Nora said. “My only other suggestion would be to use the river craft, and that puts them at serious risk as well.”

  “What about the ship?” Neil asked.

  “We need it to ferry supplies north,” Zach said. “We can use it in the actual battle, but not in the preparation phase.”