Fang: A World at War Novel (World at War Online Book 3) (6 page)

“
Could be for confusion. They've been known to do that,” Xavier said, referring to the level designers.

“
Well, we're going to find out anyhow,” Zach said.

“
We're not going to find out anything if we keep standing here,” Danny spoke up.

“
Let's move then,” Zach ordered. “Same patrol file as last time.”

He took a quick glance down at the fuel counter on his flamethrower. There was still plenty left before he would have to reload.

“If this heads north...” Xavier began and then went silent.

Zach looked over at him. “Hm?”

“Does anyone remember how far the station was from the north wall of the district?” he asked.

“
At least a mile, maybe more?” Danny said uncertainly.

“
The district is four miles from north to south, and the station is closer to the south wall than the north one,” Nora spoke up from the rear team. “So we have between two and three miles until we reach the wall, and there's no guarantee that the station will be anywhere near the walls.”

“
So we could be talking about five miles or more of tunnels?” Selene said. “That's... That's a lot for one squad to cover.”

“
Hence why we're sticking to the main tunnel,” Zach said.

“
This is going to be a pain, though, shuttling troops back and forth,” Gavin said. “I wonder if we could restart the rails.”

“
We need the cars for that, and I didn't see any in the station back there,” Danny pointed out.

“
Maybe there's some in the tunnel. Or maybe they're in another station.”

“
That's also assuming that we can get them to work,” Javy brought up.

“
I think Hephaestus can get
anything
to work,” Gavin said.

“
OK, point taken,” Javy agreed.

“
We've got to clear this place first,” Danny said, all focus.

Zach nodded in agreement. “Let's figure out what exactly we have down here first.”

They passed by several passages branching off the main route, probably maintenance tunnels and the like. One of them was filled with chilus larvae, but Danny took care of the problem with a hail of bullets. Luckily the larvae didn't have fully developed shells.

Fang Squad had gone about a mile into the tunnels, running into solitary chilus on the way through. All of them were big, though none of them were the size of the one they had encountered their first time down here. What had happened to it? Was it a one time thing, or was it waiting for them?

Danny stopped for a moment as his light caught something further up the tunnel.

“Subway cars,” he said. “Three of them.”

“
Should we explore them?” Xavier asked.

Danny shrugged. “We're going to have to pass by them anyhow, so why not?”

“Because they look like pretty good hiding places?” Gavin suggested.

“
We'll handle it carefully,” Zach said. He activate his radio so that everyone could hear him clearly. “Alright guys, there's some rail cars ahead that might be occupied. We'll move up until we're about thirty yards away. Once we're in position my team will advance on the cars while Selene's team provides cover. Got it?”

They started moving up. Zach got a much better look of the cars as they neared. They were worn, rusting in places, but they looked like they might be salvageable. The wheels weren't completely bent out of shape, and it didn't look like there were any other major issues, though it was hard to tell from this distance.

Zach's team was about fifty feet from the rearmost car when their plan went to pieces.

A loud series of hisses suddenly pierced the air, and chilus started flooding out the hatches and broken windows of the subway cars.

“CONTACT! Major contact!” Zach shouted in his radio link. His team opened fire.

He pulled the trigger of his flamethrower and started to wash the rear car with flames. Contrary to most games, World at War portrayed flamethrowers realistically. They didn't have great range, but Zach could fire about sixty feet with his weapon. That didn't mean much in a field battle, where even a submachine gun could fire accurately at fifty yards, but in close quarters it was more than enough. Chilus shrieked as they were immolated by the stream of fire.

More and more poured out of the cars, though. Dozens. Scores. The rest of his team opened fire, armed with armor-piercing bullets. Danny was lying prone on the ground, using the bipod of his gun to steady his aim and firing long bursts at any target that presented itself. Wordlessly, Xavier and Gavin had moved up next to them and were firing as well. Gavin knelt off to Danny's left, providing him with cover and allowing him to work without fear of attack. Xavier was doing the same to Zach's right.

“
Watch it!” Miko warned through the radio link.

There was a shriek above them and a chilus fell from the ceiling, missing Zach by a mere few feet. It was dead, its head blown clean off.

“Contact!” he heard Javy shout through the radio link as well. Gunfire erupted behind them. In the confines of the tunnel the noise was deafening.

Zach wanted to take a moment to assess the situation and get everyone into position, but he didn't have the time. His weapon was desperately needed to stem the tide of chilus that were pouring out of the subway cars. He sent another long stream of flame at the approaching horde.

“Danny, how much ammo do you have left?” he asked, speaking through the radio link to be heard over the din.

“
About half the belt,” came the reply.

“
Conserve it. I'm going to wash the tunnel with the rest of the tank and then reload, so I'll need you to cover for me when I do that.”

“
Roger.”

Zach pulled the trigger and held it, sweeping the nozzle back and forth to cover the area in front of them with flames. He managed to get some of the burning fuel into the second car, which elicited even more shrieks. The stench of burning meat and chitin filled the air. Zach could feel the air rushing around him, being drawn in by the fire. It fanned the flames even further.

They had an opening. A few chilus tried to climb across the ceiling, but they were shot down by accurate fire from Gavin and Xavier. The rest of them drew back, afraid of the flames.

“
Loading!” Zach said. He loaded up his flamethrower with a new tank.

“
They're still coming from this direction,” Selene said.

“
How many?” Zach asked as he finished reloading.

“
We've killed about a half-dozen. There's a few more of them, at least.”

They had run into a perfect ambush. And while they might be holding their own for a moment, that might not last. They needed to jump-start their advance.

“Danny, reload,” Zach ordered. “Gavin, Xavier, once he's done do it as well. We'll go in with full ammo and make a push up the tunnel. I'm going to try to get all the cars with the flamethrower, but I'll need cover.”

“
You sure the flames are going to last long enough?” Gavin asked, indicating the conflagration in front of them.

“
We'd better hope,” Zach said. “It's that or we sit here until we run out of ammo.”

“
Reloading,” Danny said calmly, expertly opening up his gun and feeding another belt in. It took him less than thirty seconds to complete the job.

Gavin and Xavier quickly changed magazines. By then the flames had died down a bit. Zach could hear the sounds of chilus scurrying around over the crackle of the flames. It sounded like they were regrouping for another attack. But they weren't going to get a chance to do it.

“Let's go!” he ordered, hefting his weapon and charging forward. The others were right beside him.

Zach sprinted forward, closing the distance between their former position and the rearmost subway car. A chilus just on the other side of the flames shrieked as it was cut down by a quick burst. The fire was almost out, and soon enough they would be swarmed again. But it had bought them enough time.

He stopped about ten feet from the last car and squeezed the trigger. More chilus shrieked as they were cooked by the stream of flame. Zach used his weapon like a hose, dowsing the tunnel and the train cars with burning fuel. The shrieks became louder and more numerous.

Something started to charge out of the flames. Zach felt his heart stop for a moment. It was the giant chilus, aflame, hurt, but still able to fight, and it was headed straight for him. He raised his flamethrower to fire again...

The weapon coughed a gout of flame and then died. He was out of fuel.

Desperately, Zach dropped the flamethrower and pulled out his pistol. He pulled the trigger as fast as he could, sending bullet after bullet into the creature, but they didn't even slow it down. The others added to the volume of fire, but still the creature came on.

His gun clicked empty. Zach didn't even have time to scream before the mandibles closed in around him.

You are KIA
.

CHAPTER 6

Tesla Did it First

Ghost Company's officers met the next day in Redd Foxx HQ to go over the intelligence they had gathered. They included Zach, Selene, Danny and Nora from Black Wolf, Anna, Liz and Gray from Redd Foxx, Robbie and Blake from Raven and Neil from Spectre.

“
So, how the heck does the company commander become the only casualty in a recon expedition deep into enemy held territory?” Anna asked with a laugh. “That has to take something special.”

Nora laughed herself. “Well, that happens when your company commander is the one with the flamethrower and gets rushed by a huge chilus.”

“He was a pretty good distraction, though,” Danny said.

“
Yeah, yeah,” Zach muttered.

“
How did the actual expedition go?” Liz asked.

Selene spoke up. “Fairly well, actually, despite our fearless leader getting himself killed. We managed to explore the main tunnel, and we found the station for the Zionville district.”

Nora opened up her notes. “That station is going to be our biggest obstacle. I think that might be where the attack originated from. It's fortified, it's heavily garrisoned and it's the only way out of the tunnels from that end,” she summarized. “We're going to have to organize a proper assault.”

“
How much recon work did you manage to do in the station proper?” Gray asked them.

“
Not as much as we would have liked, but we still know the basic layout. It looks like the area his held by a company sized force,” Nora detailed. “We did notice that they have heavy weapons dug into the choke points of the station. Mostly heavy machine guns, though Miko spotted something that she thought was a tripod mounted autocannon.”

“
Just how close did you guys get?” Neil asked. His company had learned stealth work in their own way, though they weren't quite the equals of the other companies.

“
We had to stick to the shadows,” Selene said. “That's going to be another issue. The entire station is lit, though we don't know what's powering the lights.”

“
Could be a generator,” Blake suggested.

Danny shook his head. “We don't think so. We think it's being fed from somewhere else in the tunnels, because we discovered a whole mess of wires and a circuit box in one of the side tunnels near the station.”

“Do you know for sure that it's a power conduit?” Robbie asked.

“
It's our best guess,” Danny shrugged.

“
Would have helped if our engineer didn't get chopped in half by a chilus,” Selene snarked.

“
OK fine, I'll let you fight the giant chilus with a pistol next time, thank you very much,” Zach retorted.

“
Wow, someone's bitter,” Gray said with a grin.

“
In his defense, that chilus was pretty unfair,” Danny said. “I mean, we set in on fire and pumped about fifty rounds into the thing and it still managed to cut him in half.”

“
How did that feel, by the way?” Liz asked. “I can't imagine that it was pleasant.”

“
Surprisingly it wasn't so bad,” Zach said. “Aside from being grabbed by a giant bug, I didn't really feel anything. The last thing I knew was that it had reached me, and then I got the KIA message.”

“
Well, it was pretty gruesome from our perspective,” Nora said. “I mean, saying that a chilus can chop you in two isn't an exaggeration. It literally chopped you in two.”

“
Sounds charming,” Liz replied.

“
My thoughts exactly,” Zach said.

Anna spoke up. “It is interesting, though. It went straight for you, is that right?”

“Yeah,” Zach said. “What, are you assuming that it targeted me directly?”

“
It seems like that might be the case,” Anna said. “Or I could be wrong and it was just chance.”

Nora thought for a moment. “No, I think that's a pretty spot-on observation,” she said. “Remember the giant chilus we ran into in the overdrive bunker?”

“I remember that it targeted the ones doing the highest damage first,” Selene said. She had been the second one knocked out by the creature.

“
So is chilus AI programed to target the players putting out the highest amount of damage?” Liz asked. “If that's true we might be able to use that to our advantage.”

“
We might,” Danny said. “That said, I'm not sure how much of a difference it will make. We can't just have our biggest damage dealers not firing, after all.”

“
Honestly, I think this is a textbook example of the weakness of smaller teams in the tunnels,” Selene said. “We didn't have quite enough firepower to get the job done with the bigger creatures. Plus, not having a grenade launcher really cuts down on the amount of firepower we can dish out in a pinch.”

“
So are small team missions off the table?” Liz asked.

Selene gave a twisted smile. “Heck no. They're way too much fun. But we should expect to take casualties during them. And they're less effective, so we shouldn't expect too much progress from them.”

Robbie cut in on their thoughts. “OK, so if we're prepping for an underground assault, what's our part going to be in this? We can't use our normal transports underground, and I don't think you want us fighting on the front lines.”

Raven Company was Ghost Battalion's transportation experts. They were excellent handlers of the river craft that Black Wolf and Redd Foxx often used, but their real forte was their flying ability. Their handling of Hydra's chopper force was masterful, and they were one of the main reasons that the rangers were such a formidable force. But as Robbie had said, neither skill had use in an underground battle.

There were other ways that they could be used, however, and Nora thought she had just the thing.

“
You guys can handle Mules and ATVs, right?” she asked.

“
Yeah, perfectly fine,” Blake said with a somewhat bemused look on his face.

“
I still need to talk with Hephaestus about that, but I think that we might be able to get Mules into the subway line. We can use them in attacks on the other station,” she suggested.

“
Actually, I had a thought similar to that last night,” Danny said. “We still have access to the three subway vehicles. The front one is an engine.”

“
So you want to use it?” Gray ventured to guess.

Danny nodded. “It took the least amount of damage during the firefight, so Hephaestus might be able to reverse engineer some of the tech, at least. I'm thinking that we could make some sort of specialist vehicle for the metro. Like an armored train.”

“So we plate it with armor, fill it with guns and drive it straight into then enemy station?” Anna asked. “That sounds like a solid concept, at least.”

“
It's going to take some time to get off the ground,” Blake mused.

“
We can always plan an attack with it and then use it later,” Zach said. “It probably can carry more weapons than a Mule, at any rate.”

“
What about the side tunnels?” Neil asked.

“
We didn't explore them,” Selene explained. “Too much ground to cover for a unit our size.”

“
Do you mind if we have a go with it?” he asked. “I want to get my guys familiar with the environment.”

The others looked at each other for a moment.

“I think you should be fine,” Zach said. “You have what, twenty members? Just make sure you have flamethrowers and armor-piercing ammo with you and you should be fine.”

“
Says the only one who died on the last mission,” Gray said under his breath.

“
Great, not you too,” Zach groaned.

“
Even if it is dangerous, it's still a good idea,” Nora said. “You'll get the experience you want, and who knows? You might find something useful down there.”

Nora's second journey into the tunnels was much less eventful than the first time. Xavier and Javy assembled their squads and had gone back in to help guide Spectre Company to the side passages.

They also secured the area around the three subway cars, still black from the effects of the flamethrower. Nora and Zach followed them soon after with some of the members of Hephaestus Company.

“So, here it is,” Nora said as their group approached. The Black Wolf squads had formed a lose perimeter around the area and then illuminated the vehicles with battery powered floodlights.

“
Well, you certainly did a number on it,” Paige commented. “I'm surprised that you didn't burn everything to slag.”

Zach shrugged. “Well, there's not much else you can do when a horde of chilus comes charging at you.”

Yusuf walked forward for a look at the front engine. “Anyhow, this looks like it's in pretty good shape, at least. Though I'd have to look at the interior as well.”

“
I think the entry hatch is in the back,” Zach said.

Yusuf paused for a moment, hesitating. Nora saw Paige giving the entire thing a dubious look.

“Are you sure that you killed all the chilus?”

“
Positive,” Zach said with some annoyance.

Nora laughed. “Oh come on, how would you know? You got killed before we cleared the area.”

“You're not helping,” he muttered to her under his breath.

Nora turned to look at Yusuf. “Yes, we're pretty sure that we cleared out the entire area, but we'll make sure if you're nervous.” She activated her radio. “Javy, can I borrow a couple of your squad? We're going to clear out the subway engine.”

“Hasn't it already been cleared out?” Javy asked quizzically.

“
Yes.”

“
Oh. So they're running scared, huh?”

She smiled despite herself. “Be nice. I can't exactly blame them for being skittish about it.”

“Right. Colin, Joe, go help Nora.”

“
Want to help me?” she asked Zach.

“
Sure,” he shrugged, hefting his carbine.

Colin and Joe were waiting for them at the engine's rear entryway. Colin had his machine gun, and Joe was carrying a flamethrower.

“Both of you should be in front,” Zach said. “We'll pull the door open and then follow behind you.”

“
Glad to know we're cannon fodder,” Colin quipped in a good-natured tone. Joe simply laughed.

“
Hey, I was in front on the last mission,” Zach said. “Plus, there's nothing inside.”

“
Great, tempt fate,” Colin said.

Nora took hold of one of the door handles. “OK guys, let's do this.”

She and Zach yanked open the door. In hindsight it might have been better for them to coordinate the timing more, but Nora didn't actually think there was any danger. Fang Squad had annihilated the chilus nest here.

Nevertheless, the car still had to be cleared. Joe went in first, followed by Colin. Nora started to move when Colin put a hand out to halt her.

“It's clear,” he said.

“
Thanks guys,” she said to the other two as they exited the car and headed back to their positions.

“
Car's clear,” Zach told Yusuf and Paige.

The pair headed over to the entrance and climbed in. Zach and Nora followed right behind them.

At the front of the engine was a control board, filled with switches and lights. Yusuf tore a side panel off, revealing a massive number of wires that made no sense to her.

That was what Hephaestus Company was here for. Many of them were engineers, architects and the like in the real world, and those skills translated well to the game. Hydra was dominant in no small part thanks to their ability.

“Looks like all the wiring is intact,” Yusuf said. “It's still on the rails, so that's good. We won't have to mess with trying to align it on the track.”

“
That's the controls, though. Where's the power source it draws from?” Zach asked.

Paige signaled them to move aside. “I don't see anything in here,” she said. “That probably means the battery nests are on the outside somewhere. I'll go look.”

“Do you think you can reverse engineer this?” Nora asked after she had left.

Yusuf was still poking around. “Maybe, thought it might be hard without a schematic. We could probably do it, but it's going to take time. We're still trying to rebuild the armored company.”

“How's that going?” Zach asked.

Yusuf grunted. “Slower than we'd like. Far slower. Moving the Forge from Lerna Bastion to here certainly didn't help things.”

“On the other hand, the Forge would be rubble right now,” Nora pointed out.

“
True enough. Funny how things like that seem to work themselves out. Anyhow, we're making progress, but it's still going to be a bit. We have three more Rams and another Bull in the pipeline right now. After that we have two more Rams and a Bull to go until they're back up to their pre-battle strength. But if we want to compensate for the additional members they've gained then it's going to take even longer.”