Commando City: A World at War Novel (World at War Online Book 7) (16 page)

“Understood. We'll cease bombardment momentarily.”

A second later the cacophony of gunfire stopped. Selene didn't have time to observe any more before her group made their final run into the marina.

Disused boats sat at the docks rusting, many of them partially or fully submerged. No matter, though. Ghost Battalion's river craft had tough bottoms, able to withstand small arms fire and many obstacles. A few rusting hulks weren't going to slow them down.

Her river craft slowed as it came to the end of one of the docks, and then there was no more time to think. Troops began dismounting, and she followed, assault rifle in hand.

More and more of her unit moved into the marina's bay and headed for the docks, guns at the ready to deal with any impending threats. Selene expected to come under heavy fire at any moment, but as they started toward the end of the dock nothing came their way.

She activated her radio. “Danny, what's going on? How far have they fallen back?”

“They've fallen back a ways,” he replied. “For some reason they just packed up and left, and I don't know why.”

Selene frowned. “Maybe they…”

And then she heard it. Her voice trailed off as the sound reached her ears, faint at first but quickly gaining volume. For a second she didn't dare to look up, hoping that she was mistaken. But no matter how much she wished it, she couldn't deny she knew exactly where it was coming from.

One glance up at the sky confirmed her worst fears. A series of black spots fell out of the heavens, screaming as they descended. She thought for a moment about calling for antiaircraft fire, but at this point nothing was going to stop them from their attack run.

Ragnarok's dive bombers had arrived, and were closing in for the kill.

“Cover! Get to cover!” she shouted down the radio link. All around her troops started scrambling for the shore, trying to get onto solid ground before the enemy blasted them into dust.

Selene suddenly heard a series of higher-pitched screams, rising above the sound of the dive bombers themselves. As soon as her feet hit solid ground she threw herself flat, trying to dig herself as deep into the earth as possible.

Then the harbor behind her erupted in flames.

“
O
h
, that's not good,” Xavier commented as the column came to an abrupt halt at the first sign of explosions.

“Not good at all,” Danny agreed.

He looked up and saw more dive bombers closing in on the target. From the looks of things Ragnarok had committed a significant number of planes to the fight. At least a squadron, he guessed, maybe more. How were they going to deal with so many, especially when they could place their bombs right on target?

“We're out in the open. What do you want us to do?” Javy asked.

Danny snapped back to attention and cursed his stupidity. He had become so fixated on the situation in the marina that he had neglected his own troops. If they kept standing out here like this they'd be sitting ducks for anyone who wanted to line up a shot at them.

“Back into cover. Form a perimeter around the beachhead and wait for orders. Even with the dive bombers we have to get the rest of them ashore.”

But did that actually mean anything? Danny moved into cover with the rest of his troops and activated his radio, trying to make sense of the mess. Would Selene's unit manage to even survive that kind of raid out in the open, let alone be in fighting shape afterward? And even if that went smoothly, how was Redd Foxx going to get onshore with all of the marina's docks destroyed.

“Alpha Wolf, Alpha Wolf, please respond.”

Nothing, though the link was active, so Selene wasn't dead at the moment. But if she wasn't answering him then their situation at the shoreline must be dire indeed. He tried to raise her again. Still, no response.

Danny finally gave up and switched channels. “Wolf Lead, Wolf Lead, this is Bravo Wolf. I can't raise Alpha Wolf. I say again, I can't raise Alpha Wolf. What are your orders?”

Z
ach could see
the dive bombers continuing to make their runs on the marina as he heard Danny's message. It might be only a matter of time before they started to focus on the forces patrolling the lake, and then they were in serious trouble. None of them had good antiaircraft weapons, and the Hornets couldn't do much to slow the enemy down either.

“Wolf Lead, Wolf Lead, please respond.”

Zach hesitated for a moment before responding. He had no idea what to do now. Should they continue the attack and hope for the best, or did they need to fall back to salvage the situation?

“I hear you Bravo Wolf.”

“Good. What are your orders?”

“Are you under attack?”

“No, but I'm willing to bet that the Valkyries are going to be back soon. I thought this was too convenient.”

Too convenient indeed, Zach thought as he looked down at the map. Bravo Wolf was lines up along the northern part of the marina, their backs to the water. And if the enemy decided to strike back…

“Aw, crap,” he said aloud, half to himself.

“What?”

Zach realized he had just broadcast his exclamation over the radio link. “Danny, can you get in contact with Selene?”

“Not over the radio, like I said, and any runner I send is probably going to get themselves killed.”

Zach hesitated for a moment, then made his decision. “Fall back to the Lake Park, if you can. I'll try to route the rest of the landing force there if they can move, but don't count on it.”

“Got it, but what about the rest of you?”

“We'll think of something. Try to secure the beach, at least. I might have an idea, but it's going to be a desperation move.”

“Uh, that sounds like fun.”

“Yeah, I know. Do your best,” Zach ordered.

He looked back at the carnage occurring at the marina, wondering what to do. Zach needed to make a decision, and fast, but what would it be? A wrong choice could spell disaster.

T
he Gazelle force
had almost linked up with Spectre when the hammer blow fell on them. Ragnarok troops suddenly surged out of buildings and alleyway, putting them under a hail of fire. Half of their infantry were wiped out in the span of a few seconds, and Nora heard dozens, maybe hundreds of bullets pinging off their hull.

The enemy fire had become so intense that Anna was forced to duck inside of the turret, depriving them of their machine guns. That left Nora as their only good offensive weapon. She traversed the turret and pulled the trigger, raking anything and everything that crossed her sights. There was no question of overkill or conserving ammunition. Right now they either killed the enemy or would end up dead themselves.

“Where the heck did these come from?” Liz said over the radio link. She kept the Gazelle moving down the street, providing shelter for the few surviving infantry.

“It's probably part of their plan,” Anna said.

Nora agreed. They had been listening to enough of the radio chatter to know what was going on elsewhere. And if they didn't do something to counter Ragnarok's move they'd be goners.

“We can't just stay here,” she said. “We have to break out somehow.”

“Yeah, but do you have any non-suicidal ideas?” Liz asked

“Pretty much all ideas are suicidal at this point.” She rotated the turret and gunned down an enemy trying to aim an RPG at them. “Maybe our best bet is to make a quick run for the northern half of the district.”

“What, and leave our infantry behind just like that?”

“They can ride on the back,” Nora said. “Yeah, it might be tough, but we're going to get ourselves killed if we stay here much longer.”

“We're going to have to make a decision soon,” Liz warned.

Anna didn't respond for a moment, before her voice rang out over the radio. “Allen, we're making a break for it. Get your squad on the back of the Gazelle and hang on. This is going to be a rough ride.”

“Understood. We'll tell you when we're set.”

“Bear in mind that means we can't fire back,” Nora warned. With so many troops clinging to the back she couldn't traverse the turret without knocking some of them off with the gun barrel.

“That's fine. Speed's going to be the only thing that saves us now. Hope your driving skills us up to snuff, Liz.”

“Yeah, yeah, you can come down here and drive if you don't like it.”

Nora had to smile despite the situation. Even in the middle of a brutal fight they were able to keep the banter going, even if it was probably just to calm their nerves.

She heard a series of clunks on the rear of the Gazelle.

“We're on,” Allen said.

“Hold on tight,” Liz warned, then revved the motor. A second later the Gazelle sped up the street, rapidly picking up speed.

Nora felt a twinge of guilt at leaving Spectre behind, but there was nothing they could do about it. If they stayed they'd be dead anyhow, so the only real choice was to retreat to fight another day.

If they made it, that was.

B
ombs continued to scream down
, throwing up dirt, debris, vegetation, bodies. Selene and a few of the others clung to the ground, desperately trying to avoid the storm of explosions and shrapnel swirling around them. She didn't know how badly her unit was faring, but judging by the amount of punishment raining down on them they weren't going to be in any shape to fight, let alone secure the beachhead.

And then the screaming suddenly stopped. Selene kept her head down for a few seconds, not quite daring to raise it to look around for fear of another bomb. But once the eerie silence spread across the battlefield she picked herself up to survey the carnage.

The marina lay in flames, the docks twisted and broken by the onslaught of explosions. Wrecked boats lay scattered about. And then there were the bodies. The bodies. Bobbing up and down in the water, strewn about on the beaches, the dead lay everywhere. Forget her company, she might not even have a platoon left.

Selene was about to activate her radio when she heard a battlecry rise from the direction of the city. She fumbled around with her harness, trying to free her bayonet.

As she fixed her blade she glanced up toward the direction of the sound. Sure enough, one look confirmed her worst fears. Enemy troops charged toward her position, blades fixed and shining in the sun.

The Valkyries were coming to finish them off.

“
D
anny
, we're under attack and pinned down,” Logan said over the radio. “I don't think we're going to be able to withdraw.”

Danny frowned. “Do you need us to wheel around and support?”

“No, you come this way and you're going to get stuck here too. Keep falling back. We'll hold them off.”

“OK then. Good luck.”

Logan snorted. “No luck here. We'll just try to kill as many of them as possible.”

And that's where they were right now, Danny thought sourly. Running away with their tail between their legs while the rest of the battalion simply tried to go down swinging. All their planning, all their effort and their enemies had still gotten the better of them.

But he couldn't dwell on that right now. They needed to get to the relative safety of the Lake Park, and that was still a ways off.

Danny activated his radio. “All units outside of Logan's squad, keep moving toward the Lake Park. We need to get there to make sure we can keep a foothold in the district.”

Would they get another chance after a disaster like this, though?

“
I
f you get
ashore can you fight guerrilla style?” Zach asked Gray over the link. “Enough to keep them busy?”

“Yeah we can, but where's our landing zone?”

Zach took another glance at the map. “The beach around the Lake Park.”

“If we slow down the garrison around the hospital is going to shoot us up. There's no cover there,” Gray protested.

“Then make a quick run and offload as fast as you can. Beach the boats if you have to, just make sure you get onshore and into the district.”

“Do you really want to hand them over to the enemy? Ragnarok's going to come for them as soon as they figure out we just abandoned them.”

“Then blow them up in the middle of the night,” Zach said tersely. “Just get on shore and into the Lake Park so we can keep our foothold in the district.”

“Understood,” Gray said, just before the Redd Foxx section pulled away.

“Zach, what do you want us to do?” Robbie asked.

He looked around at his scant force, just a few river craft and the helicopter gunships circling above. At this point they had no hope of extracting Selene's company, and the amount of support they could give Redd Foxx would be limited at best.

“My force, withdraw back to Waukegan,” he said, frustration mounting. Once again, the Valkyries had beaten them bloody.

T
hey had
no hope of winning.

Selene knew that very well as she fired burst after burst into the enemy horde, cutting down several. Caught out in the open with little support and few numbers, the only thing her unit could do was to take as many enemies with them as possible before they were all killed.

As the Valkyries closed the distance she charged forward to meet them, rifle and bayonet at the ready. She dodged a blade and lunged forward, thrusting her point into an enemy's chest. Selene yanked her bayonet out and whirled it in a rapid arc, slashing another foe across the throat and forcing another to step back.

But it was like trying to stop a raging flood with just a bucket. For every enemy she killed or wounded, five more took their place. And then their close-combat prowess started to shine through.

Selene was engaged with another Ragnarok trooper when she felt something punch into her ballistic vest, knocking her off balance. She struggled to regain her composure, trying to protect herself while looking for the source of the attack. Someone had probably shot her with a pistol at close range, not enough to penetrate her vest, but enough to hurt.