Deception City: A World at War Novel (World at War Online Book 5) (8 page)

“That’s more like what I’m used to,” Blake said with a smile. “Pardon me saying so, but the Hornet always seemed a little dinky to me. I love the thing, but it always felt so small.”

“It’ll be nice to actually ride in a cabin,” Selene commented, looking over the design.

The new helicopter was almost twice the size of a Hornet, with room for a pilot and copilot in the cockpit, along with a sizable troop compartment behind, which could be accessed through sliding doors on either side. Like the Hornet, the two crewmembers sat side by side. Behind the troop compartment sat two engines, which would power a four-bladed rotor. Another four-bladed rotor was attached to the tail boom.

“I think you’ll like this one a lot,” Yusuf said. According to Zach, he had taken a personal interest in this project.

Selene was glad for that. She knew all of the Hephaestus engineers did good work, but Yusuf was their leader and had the most expertise. With him in charge of the project, the new design would certainly be top of the line.

“I see that this has two engines,” Blake commented as he circled around the back of the aircraft. “Does that mean more speed?”

“No,” Yusuf told him. “It can fly slightly faster than a Hornet, but cruising speed is about the same. But it has a lot more lifting power. I’d say about three times more.”

“That’ll be useful,” Blake nodded.

“How many troops can it carry?” Selene asked.

“There’s room for ten in the back,” Paige told her. “I’m not entirely sure on how you guys operate, but you might want to have a dedicated crewmember or two in the back on missions. We can pintle mount weapons in the doorframes.”

“Just like a proper transport helicopter,” Blake agreed. “I’d say that’s a good idea. We have to divide up by fireteams when we’re using Hornets, and you use eight member squads. So having two gunners along with a squad in transport might be our best bet.”

“And the transports can carry their own covering fire with them,” Selene deduced.

“Right. We still should use gunships, but this will increase the firepower we can bring to bear in an air assault by a lot.”

“We’re working on a proper gunship variant, but that’s going to take some time,” Yusuf told them.

“How long?” Selene asked.

“It’s not a priority. More of a pet project of mine,” he replied. “It depends how much I have to work on the more important schematics. Plus, there’s a lot of changes that need to be made before it can be a proper gunship helicopter.”

“Changes like what?”

Yusuf looked over at the front end of the helicopter. “The cockpit area needs to be entirely redesigned. It’s fine for a transport, but it’s way too broad for an attack helicopter.”

“Going with tandem seating, then?” Blake asked.

“Yeah, and that’s going to be difficult, trying to get a proper airframe with the free crafting system,” Yusuf said. “It can be done, but it’s so much easier with a schematic.”

Selene looked back over at the helicopter. “So what about this model? When can we start producing it?”

Paige opened up her wrist menu to look at something. “Well, we’re currently focusing on building more assault guns and APCs for the attack on Milwaukee. We’re anticipating an uptick in casualties, and we want to have replacements on hand.”

Selene nodded. It was a fair assumption to make, because armored vehicles were very vulnerable in urban combat, even when screened by infantry. All it took was one anti-tank landmine, one enemy soldier at close range with an RPG, and their expensive, powerful machine would be nothing but scrap metal.

Paige searched through her menu some more. “We’ll be able to clear up a production block for you, though some of the others might not like it. Dragon and Knight Battalions want assault guns as well, but that’s going to take some doing.”

“So it’s down to who politics the best?” Selene asked.

Yusuf shook his head. “We won’t let it get that far. Remember, we’re the ones that control the production. The military council gives us orders, but, well, we’re the only ones who can carry them out. And if we want to make changes…”

“We’ll try to be as fair to everyone as possible,” Paige continued. “I know it might not be easy, but we’ll try to balance everyone’s needs.”

“But that’s in the future,” Yusuf said. “We still need the complete the prototype tests.”

Blake looked over at him. “Wait, you haven’t flown it yet?”

“We’ve only completed it recently.”

“Can you move it outside to one of the concrete lots?” Blake asked.

“We’ll have to power it up first, but yeah, we can do that. You want to take it for a spin?” Yusuf said.

“No time like the present,” Blake shrugged. “And since I’m already here, why not?”

Paige closed her wrist menu and headed for a side door. “I’ll get the ground crew on it.”

“And I’ll alert command that we’re doing a test flight,” Yusuf said, following close behind.

“You finally get to play with your new toy,” Selene said after they had left.

“Test run. It’s a test run,” Blake said.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”

He frowned. “Are you not coming with me?”

“Well, you only need one pilot, right?” Selene asked.

“Yeah, but there’s two seats,” Blake pointed out. “Come along with me. You’ll enjoy it. Besides, you can also learn how to fly a helo. Pilots shouldn’t be restricted to just Raven Company.”

That rang true, especially after the elimination of classes. Players were now capable of holding multiple specializations, and having more skills meant far more flexibility in different situations. Besides, Selene had often wondered what it would be like to control her platoon from the air, flying above in an observation helicopter and being able to give orders while seeing the whole picture.

“Put that way, I can’t really refuse, can I?” she said.

Blake gave her a reassuring smile. “Nope. Although I don’t think you’ll regret it.”

“
W
ow
. This has a lot more power than I thought,” Blake commented, speaking over the comms system. Even with the doors shut, the sounds from the rotors and both engines drowned out everything else.

“It flies a lot smoother as well,” Selene observed.

“That’s to be expected. There’s a lot more weight to counter the vibrations from the rotors,” Blake told her. “Now let’s see what this thing can do.”

He moved the controls, and the helo started to rise into the sky. Blake made a few more adjustments, rapidly increasing their rate of ascent.

“Well, this climbs much faster,” he commented. “Add that onto the cargo capacity, and we have a winner.”

“Good.”

“And it’s stable. Easy to fly. Want to get some experience in?”

Selene frowned. “Is this the right time?”

“It’s a lot easier to handle than a Hornet. Don’t worry about it. I’ll be here to help you if you get into trouble.”

Selene took a deep breath. “OK, then. Where do I start?”

Blake leveled off the aircraft and started to relay instructions at first. Selene listened in implemented them, tentatively at first, and then with more confidence as the aircraft responded to her commands. His observation had been correct. The new helo was intuitive, easy to fly, simple to control. It responded to every command just the way she wanted.

And Selene could appreciate the freedom of the skies from inside.

A
ll clear
. Two gunships circled overhead as four transport Hornets touched down and disgorged their payload. Two full squads of Black Wolf troops dismounted from their bench seats and formed up, grabbing extra gear as well. Once they were unloaded the helos took off again and headed for home. They would return when the troops on the ground called them back.

Danny got on the radio to make sure everything was set, then ordered his unit to move out. His troops melted into the forest, heading for their destination.

“Good to be out and about again,” Danny said as they walked.

“Maybe for now,” Miko said from beside him. She had temporarily been attached to his section for the mission.

“We won’t run into an enemy patrol. They’re too focused on the area around Green Bay and Milwaukee.”

“Ragnarok might not be a problem, but nature might be,” Miko reminded him. “This looks like an area with fen wolves or ryches. Might want to be careful.”

“That’s why we brought you along,” Danny said in a jovial tone. “Don’t you want to do some big game hunting?”

“Sure, that would be fun, but don’t you think that’ll interfere with our mission?”

Danny shrugged. “Hey, as long as we can do our jobs anything extra should be fine.”

“Depends that that extra is. Could be a little diversion, or it could be some ridiculous boss monster, like the things we seemed to like stumbling across in the past.”

Danny shrugged. “Want to scout ahead to make sure we don’t run into something like that? Toward the Madison end?”

Miko nodded. “Right. Don’t forget I’m here with you guys,” she said.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied, but by then he was talking to thin air. Miko had disappeared into the forest in a flash.

In the old World at War, snipers often made the best stealth troops, due to their quiet movement and camouflage abilities. But even after the new update, Miko’s stealth abilities remained head and shoulders above the rest of Black Wolf, capable of matching even Redd Foxx’s best. Her ability to fade in and out of an area was uncanny. Even in areas with sparse cover she could move relatively unobserved. If she had some form on concealment, no one except the very best were capable of finding her.

Danny appreciated those abilities, and was even more thankful she had been attached to his unit for the mission. Miko operated outside of the regular chain of command, still going by the callsign Lone Wolf. Company command liked to use her as their wildcard, able to scout, infiltrate and eliminate specific enemy targets. But she wasn’t just a loner. She knew how to operate as part of a larger unit, tailoring her skills to best suit the comrades she was working with. If they were in a major battle she could pick off officers, disrupting the enemy’s chain of command. If they had artillery she could act as an effective spotter.

And if they were in the middle of nowhere, she could help screen the main body, warning them of any possible dangers and suggesting how to avoid them.

Danny checked in with the other two squads. “Xavier, Javy, how we coming?”

“Fine here,” Xavier replied.

“We’re good here as well,” Javy told him. “Looks like we’re nearing our target area.”

Danny nodded. “Good to know. Let’s get that area secure, then get to work.”

“Same plan as discussed?” Xavier asked.

“Yup. Each of you, designate a fireteam to guard your end of the road. I sent Miko toward Madison, so that end should get some advanced warning if anyone comes our way. We’re not expecting anything, though.”

“Never hurts to be sure,” Xavier commented, practical as always.

“Right. See you guys at the highway.”

Danny opened up his wrist menu and read through the mission parameters once more as he walked. Bravo Wolf had been assigned to interdiction duties for a while, raiding Ragnarok supply convoys far behind the front lines. They were well-suited for the job, having plenty of experience with this kind of mission over the course of several months. They knew how to set up deadly ambushes, knew how to stop a convoy, knew how to take out the most dangerous guards and leave the rest of the trucks at their mercy.

But Ragnarok had not stood idle while Black Wolf went about their work. They had changed tactics in response to the frequent raids. In the past truck convoys had driven in a relatively loose line, but that left them extremely vulnerable to attack. Ambushing troops could pick off small sections of the convoy at a time, and the distance between vehicles mean they couldn’t effectively support each other, even if they had guards.

As a result, Ragnarok Company began driving in a much tighter fashion, almost bumper to bumper in some cases. They also increased the guards assigned to each convoy, often including air cover, a tank at the front of the column, or both. As a result, Bravo Wolf’s effectiveness had decreased. They could still get their shots in, but their days of wiping out convoys with little to no losses on their side were over. Now, every time they ambushed they knew they were in for a hard fight against tough Ragnarok troops that expected an attack.

But there were other ways to turn the tables back in their favor. Their ambush tactics were beginning to lose their effectiveness, but they also forced Ragnarok to behave in a specific way. Bravo Wolf could exploit those patterns to their advantage.

Reconnaissance by airplane and by small ground teams had given them a wealth of information about the size, composition and timing of the supply convoys running between Madison and the Milwaukee offensive. Danny had spent quite a few hours going over the information with Liz and his squad leaders. Xavier had plotted out a convoy timetable, which gave them a clear picture of when Ragnarok resupplied their front line troops. Judging from the table, it happened fairly regularly. They also observed that Ragnarok drove on the right side of the highway, the same as they would in the real world.

Danny had to smile when he saw that tidbit. Old habits died hard, apparently, even when they were in a world where none of those limits existed.

Armed with that information, they devised a plan. Instead of waiting for a convoy to pass by, risking themselves in a combat situation like an ambush, they would instead plant booby traps to harm the trucks when they inevitably passed by.

And this wasn’t going to be some dinky firework, or even a few discarded artillery shells strung together with wire and attached to a detonator. No, their trap would be much more fearsome.

“Danny, we’ve secured our end of the site,” Javy called over the radio. “We’re setting our stuff up now.”

Danny looked at the minimap in the corner of his HUD. “Good to hear. I’ll be right with you.”

“Our end is secure as well,” Xavier chimed in. “I’m sending my guys to join up with Javy’s half of the team. I’ll call you if anything comes up.”

“Roger.”

“I’m not seeing anything on my end,” Miko spoke up. “There’s a few predators lurking around, but they’re avoiding me. Probably because I have a high hunter skill, so don’t take them for granted.”

“Right,” Danny nodded. The hunter skill reduced the chance of being attacked by wildlife, while also increasing the amount and type of materials harvested from a slain animal. Hydra was mostly industrialized, but used a few natural materials like chilus chitin for body armor, which made hunters like Miko valuable.

“Make sure we don’t have anything big coming our way,” Danny told her.

“Already on it. Mostly because I won’t be around to see the expression on your face when it shows up.”

“Haha. Have fun out there,” Danny said.

He joined their group of explosives experts out on the highway. There were eight in total, three who had actual expertise, and five for the simpler tasks and labor.

Danny found their leader. “Hey, Joe. What do you think?”

“What do I think?” Joe asked, taking off his patrol cap and running a hand through his hair. “Well, this might be a little harder than we originally thought. They’ve maintained the road pretty well, so we can’t hide a bomb in an abandoned car or anything like that.”

“What about burying it?”

“That’s probably our best bet, but that’s going to be hard as well. I’m glad that the road is made of packed earth, because this would be next to impossible if it was solid pavement.”

“We could lift the pavement,” Danny suggested.

Joe shrugged. “Sure. And then it would be very noticeable, and anyone who knew what they were doing would spot it immediately. I’m imagining we want the element of surprise, right?”

“That would be a good thing,” Danny nodded. “So, how are we going to play this?”

Joe looked over at the stack of equipment sitting in the middle of the road. “We’re going to set a series of explosive devices along a quarter mile stretch of road. They’ll be triggered by a three stage switch system to go off at once.”

“How are you going to manage that?” Danny asked, not quite wrapping his head around the logistics of the whole thing.

“Basically, there’ll be three pressure plates. One at the front of the convoy, one at the middle, and one where the end should be. The explosives will be triggered when all three of them are depressed simultaneously.”

“Hopefully taking out most of the convoy in the process,” Danny nodded. “OK, I get it now.”

“It’s not a perfect solution, by any means, but it’s the best we could come up with considering what we could bring with us,” Joe told him.

“And it just has to work once,” Danny said. “Once it does, they’ll have to waste time sweeping the routes.”

“Right. Now we just have to do a lot of digging,” Joe said, reaching for a shovel.

Danny grimaced. “I knew there was a downside.”

H
e might have been
able to get out of it because of his status as platoon commander, but Danny wasn’t about to sit around and just watch everyone else work. He grabbed a shovel himself and followed orders, digging wherever the explosives experts directed him toward.

It certainly wasn’t a walk in the park. The road may have been earth instead of pavement, but it had been packed down by constant pressure to a state that resembled brick more than dirt. Often he had to wait for someone else to break through the hard surface with a pickaxe before he could get a good shovelful of dirt. One time the head of the spade actually started to bend, and Danny had to force it back into place by standing on top of it.

Still, they dug. Deeper, deeper, wider into the hardened earth of the highway. They needed to be able to hide enough explosives to wreck a truck, and the sites couldn’t be obvious to the naked eye. Forcing the convoy to stop would certainly cause significant delays, but it wouldn’t destroy any materiel, supplies or strike fear into the hearts of the enemy like mass carnage would.

“Try to conceal the line along the edge of the road,” Joe said, directing two others who were laying wire underground. The lengths of cable would connect all of the pressure plates to the explosives, triggering them simultaneously once the proper conditions were met.

Danny leaned on his shovel and wiped his brow. It was a unique game, one that made you feel like you were sweating from exertion. But that was part of the thrill at the same time. A virtual world, almost like a parallel dimension, that mirrored conditions in the real world without the consequences. They could experience thrills that they could never dream of in real life due to the danger they posed.

Even if that meant the tradeoff was performing mundane tasks in between the thrills. Danny didn’t mind it, and neither did any of the others. It helped build the action into a crescendo, instead of simply drowning them in explosions and carnage. Even that would get dull after a while, if that was all the experience. But when they could contrast it to calmer situations, the fights seemed all the more exciting.

“This is really complicated,” Danny commented. “Are you sure this is going to work?”

Joe nodded. “We worked with the entire engineer corps of Ghost Battalion, along with advisors from Hephaestus Company. Remember the bomb that Zach used to kill the boss at Lerna Bastion?”

Danny was surprised he did, because Joe hadn’t been a part of Black Wolf when that happened. He wasn’t in much better position to judge, though, because he hadn’t seen the bomb in action either. He had helped plant it, providing covering fire from the rooftops, but then the boss had found him. The self-propelled antiaircraft gun cut him down without mercy, shooting him through the other side of a thick wall.

But they had won, and apparently the bomb contributed greatly to the outcome. Not bad, for something Zach had cooked up on the fly out of desperation. Still…

“Weren’t there issues with that bomb?” Danny asked.

“Yeah,” Joe confirmed. “And he knew it. He used recoilless rifle shells wired together, and most of them didn’t go off. It didn’t have enough explosive power to kill the boss, even from below. But keep in mind it was an improvised weapon.”

“Yeah, it definitely was,” Danny nodded.

“And we’ve had time to look at the design, study it and figure out a way to improve it. First off, we’re using proper explosives, shaped to direct the blast straight up. Second, we have actual detonators, so we know all the explosives we plant will go off. Third, we don’t have to sit around watching and waiting to set the bombs off. The pressure switches will do that for us.”

“Yeah, but all the wiring has to complicate things,” Danny said.

“We’re making sure it works,” Joe said. “See the lines they’re putting in the ground? They’re doubled, so that if one fails the other will still trigger the explosion. I want to make sure this thing goes off. It’ll save us a whole lot of trouble later.”

“Because of the intimidation factor?” Danny asked.

“Yeah, because of that. We send the next convoy sky high, they’ll be jumping at every pebble they see on the road.”

They were on the same page, then. The real prize wasn’t the destruction of a supply convoy, although that would be a significant bonus. No, the real value of the trap they were laying was to intimidate Ragnarok, forcing them to spend valuable time and resources defending themselves against the possibility of other bombs. It didn’t matter whether there were bombs along every inch of highway or none at all, because they would have to search regardless.