Deception City: A World at War Novel (World at War Online Book 5) (16 page)

Selene glanced toward Alpha Wolf’s forward positions. “We’re not going to be able to hold out for much longer.”

“Didn’t think you would. We’re trying to get communications reestablished with all the units so we can pull back a few blocks and consolidate our positions.”

“That means we’re going to be right up against the lake,” Selene said with some concern.

“We’re abandoning that part of the line,” Nora told her. “Don’t like it, but we can recapture it later. We’ll rely on the land routes for supplies.”

“I have runners out to Barghest and Redd Foxx,” Selene told her.

“So do we,” Nora said. “Anna’s the only one at HQ right now. The rest of us are on ATVs trying to get the situation under control.”

“I hope you can fight, then.”

“Of course,” Nora said, hefting her assault rifle. “But I’m going to have to pull back at some point to let them know what’s going on at your position.”

Selene motioned toward the rear. “Go then, and try to make it quick. We can’t hold out forever.”

Nora jogged back toward her ATV. “Right. Don’t advance any. I’ll try to bring down some artillery fire down in front of your positions.”

As if they were in a position to advance, Selene though to herself, but she wasn’t going to turn her nose up at an offer of help. All they could do was hold their battle lines and hope for the best.

She sprinted toward Logan’s position and took up a spot sheltering behind a low pile of rubble. Nothing else to do right now. Selene lined up an enemy trooper in her sights and pulled the trigger, knocking him clean off his feet.

A burst of gunfire forced her back into cover to avoid being hit. She crawled right about ten yards and lined up her next shot. No sense in popping up in the same place like a target in a shooting gallery. Unpredictability was a powerful tool in a gunfight.

There. Selene spotted her assailant, illuminated by the fires of the burning buildings lining the streets. She placed her crosshairs on his chest and pulled the trigger. Her target stumbled flat on his face and then lay still.

She shifted her aim just in time to catch an enemy trooper with a flamethrower preparing to fire. Now wasn’t the time to mess around; Selene flipped her selector switch to full-auto and squeezed the trigger. She emptied the rest of her magazine, scything down her enemy in a hail of bullets. The flamethrower operator crumpled over, stone dead. A second later her tanks exploded.

“Thought we should take care of that before someone else grabbed it,” Logan shouted out over the din of battle.

“Good thinking,” Selene replied. Bullets wouldn’t cause a flamethrower to explode unless they were incendiary rounds, but something like a grenade explosion would definitely set leaking fuel off. She must have punctured the tanks with the last burst.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. “Barghest is preparing to withdraw on the next signal,” Terra told her.

“Whenever that comes. Thanks,” Selene said, trying to be heard over the howling din of the battle.

Up until now she hadn’t realized just how much they relied on the radio, not only for long range communications, but to be heard of the cacophony of battle. Right now it felt like she had to shout every word to be heard over the din.

The next runner arrived soon afterward. “Redd Foxx is in the process of pulling back as per the orders from HQ,” Chris explained. “They-”

Selene held up a hand. “One step ahead of you. Nora already told me in person.”

Chris nodded. “They want you to hold the line until they’re past. They’ll leave one platoon to provide support on the right flank while the rest of them withdraw to the designated point.”

“Got it,” Selene said.

The designated point. Wherever that might be, because no one had told her anything about such place. Not that they could, given the complete lack of long range communications. How had soldiers and general managed to coordinate large actions without radios? Selene finally understood how so many blunders and miscommunications occurred in the wars prior to the twentieth century.

“Alpha Wolf, Fox Lead, Spirit Lead, Black Lead, please respond. Alpha Wolf, Fox Lead, Spirit Lead, Black Lead, please respond.”

The sound in her ear startled her. It took Selene a second to finally realize that the radio was working again. Why? How? Did the enemy’s jamming equipment have a time limit on it? Had they stopped the jamming for some reason?

Whatever the case, they had the radio back. Now they could finally coordinate a response with the rest of the battalion, and with Dragon as well.

“Alpha Wolf,” Selene spoke.

Karen called in afterward, followed by Liz and then Neil.

“Good,” Anna said with a sound of relief. “Nora, Zach, the radio’s back on. Everyone, what’s your status?”

“Ready and willing to fight,” Selene said. “We’re holding them off.”

“We’re withdrawing as per your orders,” Liz reported. “Heavy casualties.”

“We’re holding. We managed to keep ourselves out of the line of fire when the rockets hit,” Neil said. “Not sure that three squads are going to mean much.”

“It’s good enough,” Selene said. “We can hold them, if we can coordinate with the artillery and get some backup here.”

“We can’t,” Karen protested. “I lost half my company in the rocket attack. All my platoon commanders and most of my squad leaders are dead. I’m barely going to be able to coordinate the withdrawal, let alone hold out against a Ragnarok attack.”

“I’m headed over,” Nora said.

“Thanks.”

“We can still hold out, if we can move forces around,” Selene protested. “If we-”

“I don’t think that’s practical. Dragon’s withdrawing as well. We’ll have to follow,” Anna pointed out.

“We’re giving up a lot of valuable ground,” she insisted. Who knew how long it would take them to regain it?

“We can’t help that,” Liz said.

Selene felt the frustration rising within her, despite herself. Her common sense told her that a retreat was the only practical option at this point, but the competitor inside didn’t want to give up the battlefield. Not while they were still fighting off the enemy, at any rate.

“Are we just going to crumble in front of them again?” Selene spat out, her anger getting the better of her. “We’re holding them. We can do it if we just-”

“Selene,” Zach’s voice cut in over the radio, “your orders are to withdraw to the secondary line as ordered. Gavin, you there?”

“I’m here.”

“You heard all that?”

“Loud and clear.”

“Good. Your orders are to make sure that happens. If Selene refuses, take control of Alpha Wolf,” Zach ordered. “Though I’m sure you won’t have to do that.”

Selene scowled at that remark, but she took his point to heart. She was acting childish, after all, arguing for a hopeless battle just to massage her own ego. Better to fall back and live to fight another day.

“He won’t,” she told them. “Liz, we’ll hold position until you get past us, then fall back when signaled. Karen, I’d send you help if I could, but we’re short on troops as it is over here. We’ll nail down the flank for you, though.”

“Much appreciated,” Karen replied.

“You’ll have artillery coming down within a minute,” Anna said. “Use that to cover your withdrawal. I’ll be sending you coordinated for your new positions.”

Everyone acknowledged the order. Selene resumed her firing, taking out two more enemy troopers to try and vent her frustration. She knew retreat was the right decision, but they had lost to Ragnarok yet again.

She heard a screaming sound, just before the earth shook and the scene in front of her erupted in fire. Now was their chance.

“Alpha Wolf, withdraw to the set coordinates,” she ordered.

Selene took one brief glance at her wrist menu before breaking cover, moving with an angry stride. In the span of less than an hour, the situation had completely changed.

Ragnarok had won this round.

“
G
ah
!” Nora said in frustration as she messed up again. She gritted her teeth and went back a few measures, trying to get the section right. Once again she got about half way through before slipping up.

Nora set her bow and cello down, stood up and arched her back, trying to loosen up from sitting down for over two hours. Maybe she had been going at it for too long to be effective. A break could do her wonders.

She went into the kitchen to get a drink of water. Even in just a tank top and shorts, Nora was sweating from exertion. Many people didn’t realize just how physically taxing it was to play an instrument, especially when performing complicated or fast-paced pieces.

Nora considered herself to be a competent, even excellent cellist, but the piece she was working on today was giving her particular trouble. It was her nemesis, one she could never get a good handle on through all her years of school and college, up to when she had completed her master’s degree in music.

Bach’s Suite No. 4 in E-flat major, BWV 1010. No matter how hard she tried, the piece continually felt uncomfortable as she played. Oh, she could perform it competently, but it lacked a certain flair, a certain flow that she could put into other pieces. It felt like she was just hammering out notes instead of being a musician and playing the piece.

Maybe it was because it was in such an uncomfortable key for a cellist, but Nora had played plenty of difficult pieces before. It took plenty of practice and hard work, but given time and effort she could make them her own. One of her professors had likened her playing style to breaking a wild horse and making it look effortless. It took a considerable amount of effort and fighting with the piece, but eventually Nora could tame it in the end and bend it to her will.

Not this piece, though. No matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she practiced it always felt like she was walking on eggshells when she played it, and that didn’t suit her. Nora always felt at her best when she had complete command of the piece and could just play without thinking, being completely swept up in the music. Thinking about every individual note, worrying about every single fingering and stroke, that was something that killed the sheer joy of music for her.

To her, music was something that needed to have a beauty to it, needed to have a flow beyond a bunch of sounds strung together. It went beyond something scientific, something mathematic, something that could be quantified. Music needed to transcend the physical and reach somewhere deeper, somewhere emotional inside of every person.

But she couldn’t do that if she was focused on just banging out notes like a machine. She could be right on the money, but if it had no soul, no beauty to it, then did it really mean anything?

Nora thought about doing something else for a moment, but her cello called to her. If she was serious about auditioning for the philharmonic, then she needed to get as much practice in as possible before June hit.

She finished her glass of water and went back to her seat in the living room, easing herself back into her chair and picking her instrument back up. Nora inhaled a deep breath, exhaled it slowly, and touched the bow to the strings.

Then she started playing.

Nora tried to clear her mind, not thinking, not straining or focusing, just playing. Too much concentration meant playing like a robot, and that wasn’t her style. She had to experience the piece, to feel it flow through her bones, through her entire body. She had to feel it in her heart and soul, and she had to make anyone who was listening feel the passion, the emotion as well.

That was the greatest challenge for her while playing the suite, trying to harness everything and let it flow out. The demanding technical aspects certainly didn’t help. Nora had flubbed it many times before when she tried to play it in high school, and she had finally resorted to extreme concentration in order to overcome the obstacle.

She could play the piece now, but Nora didn’t feel that she had conquered the challenge yet. After all, it had forced her to switch her playing style, so what was the point of being able to hit all the notes? It was just a bunch of different sound waves strung together. It didn’t have her heart and soul in it, and what did it really mean without those?

Nora tried to loosen her focus as she played through the difficult prelude. It sounded counterintuitive, but focusing too much could actually hurt a player’s performance. If they thought about what they were doing too much they were more likely to make mistakes as their brain tried to perform each action one step at a time. It was like trying to run a marathon while concentrating on each motion that made up a step. Doing that would only slow her down; instead, she needed to focus on stringing the individual steps together into one coherent piece.

She couldn’t afford to spend time focusing on each note. She had to let it flow out of her, her hands on the bow and strings creating each sound before her mind could even imagine them. To describe it another way, Nora had to be ‘in the zone’, with her mind and body working in complete harmony. There could be no disconnect between the two. That’s how she played, and that’s what would take her the distance.

The room filled with the sound of music. Nora felt herself sinking deeper and deeper into the song. It was almost like diving into an ocean, becoming completely consumed by the piece. All she had to do was swim and enjoy the view.

She continued playing, getting lost within the suite…

And then she messed up.

“Crap,” Nora muttered under her breath as she stopped playing.

She still couldn’t find the proper balance. Nora could play the piece when she was completely concentrating, and she could make other songs flow when she let herself get lost in the music, but why couldn’t she find the middle ground here? Either she played in a completely mechanical fashion, or she couldn’t get all the notes right.

This piece was well and truly her nemesis.

Nora was about to resume playing when she heard her phone go off on the end table. She gently set down her instrument and walked over to retrieve it.

Meeting at 7
, the message from Liz read.

Nora took a glance at the time. 3:00 PM. Plenty of time until she needed to be online.

Until then, she would continue to practice.

T
hey had
a lot of unhappy faces, Nora thought to herself as she looked around the meeting room. Most of Ghost Battalion’s high ranking officers had gathered at Waukegan to go over the events of the previous evening. Of course, they weren’t going to be pleasant.

Ragnarok had achieved complete surprise with their counterattack, hitting the assault force when they were most vulnerable and inflicting heavy casualties. Even worse, Hydra had been forced to retreat several blocks, including giving up their portion of the waterfront. Now they lacked the necessary facilities to unload anything larger than a river craft. They couldn’t use their patrol ships for transport, which would exacerbate their supply situation.

“What’s the situation inside the city?” Danny asked. He and Blake had come along to represent the Ghost units deployed to the west.

“Ugly, truth be told,” Anna said, “We lost a quarter of the battalion in the fighting, and they’re not going to be back at full strength until they’ve had some more combat experience.”

At least they could retain some of their previous experience. The sync system allowed players to select three skills as their specialization, which kept the skill level from being reset if they were killed in battle. That let players have a head start on their progress with a new life, while also keeping the prospect of death as a very real threat.

But that only covered specialist skills like battlefield medicine, explosives and agility. Combat techniques like weapons proficiency couldn’t be selected, meaning a newly revived player had to start all over from the bottom. A more advanced clone body could help, but the number of skills they could save was still very limited. And even though the drop-off wasn’t extremely severe, it was still noticeable.

It almost mirrored a real world war, in a way. They always had reinforcements, but they had to replace veteran, experienced troops with raw recruits. Even if they knew what they were doing from their previous lives, they still weren’t up to par until they gained experience.

And that fact could hurt them badly. Even if they had relatively parity in regard to numbers, losing their most veteran soldiers hurt Hydra badly, probably more than it did Ragnarok.

Hydra relied on small groups of experienced, veteran troops to hold the line. That was all well and good, but under the current system if they were killed then they were extremely hard to replace. Ragnarok had plenty elite units of their own, but they relied more on their rank and file. While they might not quite had the skills of the elite forces, they were still formidable, and they could replace their losses far more easily.

Zach continued. “We also lost several blocks along the entire front. Luckily we managed to consolidate another line further back, but we lost a considerable amount of our gains up to now.”

“Dang,” Danny said. “Guess they’re not fooling around.”

“Not at all.”

“This isn’t some random chance, either,” Neil said. “The timing was way too precise for that. The rockets landed right on target, right as we were coming out of cover. That’s no coincidence.”

“How’d you manage to make it out of the initial bombardment without any casualties?” Karen asked. “The amount of explosives landing at once was ridiculous.”

“Dumb luck,” Neil shrugged. “We had a pretty tall building in front of us that took most of the force of the blasts. It almost collapsed on us too, but fortunately it managed to stay together until we pulled back.”

“So, Ragnarok certainly planned this,” Robbie said.

Liz nodded. “Of course. They had plenty of time to recon our positions and figure out where we were hiding. As soon as the bombardment started they probably figured an attack was coming and then timed the rocket artillery counter fire to hit right after it stopped.”

“What I don’t get is where they got all the rockets from,” Danny said. “We’ve been interdicting them for weeks, and we’ve blown up several supply convoys. They’ve had to clear the roads looking for mines and IEDs, and they were expending ammunition against the garrison. Shouldn’t they be running low by now?”

“Maybe they used them all as a last ditch effort,” Robbie said.

“If they were doing that, then I’d think they’d use them in a defensive manner,” Blake said. “Not to launch a major counterattack. My guess is that they have a lot more of them than we originally thought.”

“Do they have another way they can get supplies from Madison to Milwaukee?” Nora asked.

“Well, there’s other routes between the two cities, but the roads are smaller and aren’t well maintained,” Robbie said. “Besides, we’ve been keeping an eye on them from the air and haven’t seen anything.”

“You haven’t run into Ragnarok air cover?”

“It’s surprising how much you can sneak around in a small helicopter if you don’t bring attention to yourself.”

“Good to know,” Neil commented.

Nora frowned. “You’ve been observing, but have you patrolled all the time? What about at night?”

“We haven’t,” Robbie said. He frowned as well. “Do you think they’ve been running supplies along the secondary routes at night?”

“I think that’s definitely possible,” Nora said.

“And difficult to stop,” Zach pointed out. “Most people are asleep at that time. We’re not going to be able to drum up enough troops for an interdiction mission that isn’t during the weekend.”

“Putting that aside for a moment, we have a much bigger problem,” Anna said. “It’s obvious that we can’t completely cut their supply lines, and their troops in Milwaukee are going to get what they need to continue the fight. The bigger question is, what are we going to do against them?”

“Fight?” Robbie shrugged.

“We’ve already lost one battle,” Neil said.

“I think we have to go over what happened during that loss,” Karen said. “They hit us with a bunch of stuff at once, and it all came crashing down around us.”

Nora shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “The rocket artillery attack was bad, and the counterattack right afterward didn’t help matters. But losing our radio communications in the middle of the fight? That’s probably the biggest takeaway.”

“What does it mean, though?” Danny asked. “Do they have some secret weapon?”

Zach spoke up. “Probably.”

Every person in the room turned to hear him speak. With his knowledge of the communications systems, he’d be the one in the know.

“Any light you can shed on this?” Liz asked.

Zach nodded and opened up his wrist menu. “I took a note of the times when the radio went down and when it came back up. According to my notes, the radio went dead at 9:37 PM central time and came back up at 10:07.”

“Down for thirty minutes,” Anna mused. “Does that mean they’re using something with a time limit?”

“Oh, that’s definitely the case,” Zach agreed. “When they were implementing counters to the radio and communications systems they experimented with a bunch of different limits for balance purposes. They tried power limits or resources, but those were too easy to overcome, so they finally settled on time limits.”

“And you think they have a jamming device,” Liz said.

“You know how many schematics we found in Central City?” Zach said. “I’m willing to bet they found something similar in Madison.”

And that could spell real trouble for them, Nora mused. Hephaestus Company was working night and day to bring new equipment online and into the hands of the fighting companies, but their resources and manpower were finite. They couldn’t do everything for everyone at once, so any technological progression would be hindered by those obstacles. Ragnarok had the same problems, but at the same time, they could still match Hydra’s technological prowess. They had already played one trump card out of the blue. Who knew what else they might have hiding up their sleeve?