Commando City: A World at War Novel (World at War Online Book 7) (4 page)

There was no mistaking it. This was a jet aircraft. But how useful would it be? That was the real question. They'd find out soon enough.

“I'm going to message this to Anna,” he said.

“Thanks. We'll keep looking.”

“Well, there's some good results,” Nora commented. “I think that might be worth the casualties we suffered.”

Zach nodded. “If for no other reason than to keep this out of the enemy's hands.”

They had the airport district. And once again, the technological race was on.

“
C
ontact to our left
.”

Selene shifted her aim and found the target, a charging fen wolf baring its fangs. She steadied her assault rifle, let out a breath to relax and squeezed the trigger.

And her shots missed.

Selene groaned inwardly as she tried to compensate. Once again, she was slightly off target, and she knew that it wasn't just because of the creature's speed. It was fast and agile, to be sure, but her diminished skills were also contributing to her predicament.

As a precaution she toggled her selector switch to full auto, just in case. If the monster managed to close the distance then she needed to be able to put out a ton of firepower quickly, otherwise she'd be starting from scratch once again.

The fen wolf managed to get within thirty yards, right before a hail of bullets from all directions tore into it. Selene couldn't tell if she had scored any hits, but the creature fell, stone dead.

“Any more of them?” she asked over the radio link.

“Looks like we're clear,” Logan said.

“Clear on my end as well,” Ethan spoke up.

“Clear here too,” Gavin finished.

“OK.” She switched channels. “Yusuf, we're clear.”

“Thanks,” came the reply.

“What the heck is this place? Is there really no place else to mine for Vulcanite?”

“Not in these kind of concentrations. Besides, there's a few other materials in the ore fields around here that aren't found in the safer zones. And we need those for some of the more advanced construction. It's either that, or paying out the nose for supplies from Old Chicago.”

Selene saw his point. Many components and weapons could only be purchased from the NPC shops and foundries in Old Chicago, but they were expensive. It was much cheaper to produce their own supplies and munitions, and Black Wolf had realized that from the beginning. First it had been bullets out of a simple ammo press, then simple tracked vehicles, and then even more complicated equipment. Now, with several large factories inside Indianapolis, they could mass produce huge amounts of materiel and munitions.

But all of that required resources, which meant they either needed to buy it at exorbitant prices, or they needed to mine and gather it themselves. And the second option often meant going into dangerous areas teeming with hostile wildlife.

“How were you managing before we came along? Because this seems like a lot of enemies to deal with. Especially since it's you guys.”

“What, you rate our combat abilities that low?”

“Well, relatively speaking, of course. I'm sure you can handle the wildlife, but this many at once? Even we're having some trouble with that.”

“Well,” Yusuf said, “there's been a trickle of new blood coming in from Old Chicago, and they're not immediately sending them to the front lines.”

Selene nodded. “Yeah, probably because they'd end up getting slaughtered.”

“Yeah, but they need some way to train their skills, so we've been taking them along with us as caravan guards. And let me tell you, they can't complain about that being boring.”

“No kidding. But is that all? That seems like something that would get a lot of them killed.”

“Eh, we've had our fair share of casualties. But they learn fast not to underestimate the wildlife. Plus, we sometimes get veterans who've gotten killed on the front lines and are trying to retrain their skills. Like you guys, for instance. They can help provide pointers and a little backbone to our guard force.”

“There can't be that many, though.”

“No, which is why we've resorted to bringing a Ram with us into the really dangerous places. Fen wolves can't do much against a completely enclosed vehicle. Now, other things can wreck it, but it still gives us a fighting chance.”

Selene wasn't sure she wanted to know what those other things were. The fauna she had encountered in the game was bad enough, and Zach had informed her that they had barely even scratched the surface. There were even more dangerous creatures lurking in the far corners of the world, capable of ripping through entire platoons or armored columns singlehandedly.

“So what are you looking for, exactly?” Selene asked, trying to keep the conversation going for entertainment. She kept scanning the foliage, though, wondering if they'd have to deal with another attack.

“It's a material called cyrocite. We use it to basically make plastics or polymers. That assault rifle you're carrying is pretty much made up of cyrocite, with steel in a few places like the barrel.”

“Aren't all of our small arms made with plastic?”

“Yeah, but the older versions don't have the durability of the newer cyrocite models. And getting the material from Old Chicago is really, really expensive. So we're going with this for now, even though it's dangerous.”

“I'd hate to see what else we have to dig up,” Selene commented, still keeping a sharp eye out for any signs of activity. “Did you hear about our new discovery?”

“Of course. I was one of the first ones they contacted about it,” he replied. “Although it's interesting that they didn't find a schematic. That's odd, since most places have something like that for new equipment.”

“Is that going to be a problem?”

“Well, it's not helpful, certainly,” Yusuf said. “If we want to find out how they're built we're going to have to take one apart and analyze it, and that should be done in Central City. Getting it there might be a problem too.”

“Can't they just fly it south?”

“Would you want to screw around with something as valuable as that if you didn't know how to properly operate it?”

“OK, point taken.”

“If we can get a pilot that can fly it safely then yeah, that's going to be the best option. I'd say that they'd fly it to the Indianapolis airfield and drop it off there. That's the most direct route. But if we want to play it safe then the best way would be to take it apart and ship it to the Gary port, then bring it south by rail.”

“That's going to take some doing,” she replied. “And I think a lot of people would be sacred of doing something wrong and accidentally ruining the plane.”

“Yeah, we'll probably send a team north to do it,” Yusuf confirmed. “Thought your engineers have been providing us with a ton of good information on the planes, so I don't think that they should feel incompetent.”

“That's good to hear, but our specializations tend to focus more on battlefield engineering and less on the technical side of things. Or at least that's what they tell me.”

“Makes sense. That's mostly what you're dealing with on a daily basis anyhow.”

Selene moved a little to the left, trying to improve her field of vision a bit. It was difficult in the dense undergrowth of the forests south of Indianapolis. Lines of sight only extended about fifty yards or so in every direction, and even those were restricted. Trees and bushes created significant blind spots, places where a wily creature could sneak up on them.

They had a few troops with flamethrowers, but they couldn't be everywhere at once, and anyhow, some fen wolves were still fast enough to avoid the gouts of flames. Her platoon would have to rely on good aim, or if worst came to worst, their close-combat abilities.

“Here's a question for you,” she said. “You've taken a look at the designs of the plane we sent to you, right?”

“Right. What about them?”

“Do you think it's something that we can use to turn the tables on Ragnarok's air force?”

“I'd have to make sure that we can build it first,” Yusuf said. “There's a good chance that it's going to take materials that we don't currently have access to, and then it's a matter of getting our hands on them. Plus, even if we can, are the planes going to be too expensive to create in the grand scheme of things?”

“So it's a matter of quality versus quantity?”

“Not exactly. Quantity is a quality of its own, and that's not just a saying either. What would you rather have, the newest, hottest design that looks cool and is technologically advanced, but breaks down or is too complicated to build in huge numbers? Or would you rather have the less advanced design that's more reliable and available in greater quantities?”

“Is it an either or proposition?” Selene asked.

“No, not necessarily,” Yusuf answered, “but in many cases it is. We're going to have to spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to build and fly this thing, and that might be time better spent with other things. We might be better off trying to come up with a new tank design, or something like those assault rifles we built for you.”

“OK, I get that,” Selene nodded. After an initial adjustment period she and the rest of the company had taken to the new bullpup design. It was lightweight, powerful, compact and accurate out to a significant range, perfect for commando work.

“So it all depends on how fast we can analyze it and then get them mass produced. And then we have to find out if they're really any better than the Gales, and that's totally up to Perseus Flight.”

“Yeah, not my area of expertise either,” Selene replied.

She was about to say more when a sound made her pause. It sounded like a low growl, coming from somewhere in the brush. And then she heard it. A deep howl, loud, reverberating, almost like it was shaking the air itself.

“Um, Selene?” Ethan's voice cut in over the radio link.

“Yeah, I hear it,” she replied, gripping her assault rifle. “Keep an eye out.”

“Oh, must be it's back,” Yusuf commented like nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

“It?” Selene asked. Another series of howls joined in, these ones having a much higher pitch.

“Yeah, there's a boss monster of sorts that hangs around this area. We call her the Alpha Wolf. She must have respawned from the last time we killed her.”

His statement was met with laughter from the rest of her squad commanders.

“Looks like you might have some competition,” Gavin said.

“Yeah, yeah, just hope it doesn't decide to chomp on you,” she retorted. “How do we take care of it?”

“Shoot it?” Yusuf said.

“Obviously. I mean, what's its attack patterns? Things like that?”

“It likes to come out and attack as part of a pack,” Yusuf said. “It can leap pretty far, and it likes to pounce. Oh, and it's the size of a bus. Don't try using recoilless rifle shells on it, though. It'll dodge them.”

“Wonderful,” she muttered, half to herself.

And then she had no more time to talk, because a dozen fen wolves suddenly appeared out of the undergrowth, charging toward them with fangs bared.

The air around her rang with gunfire. Selene toggled her own weapon back to semi-auto and took aim at one of the incoming, wolves. She held her gun steady for a moment, then squeezed the trigger.

Her target flinched from the impact and slowed, but didn't fall. No matter. Selene's first shot had stunned it enough, and she followed up with two more. This time the wolf tumbled to the ground and lay still.

No time to celebrate her triumph, though. Another wolf crossed her field of vision, and she struggled to compensate for its speed. Selene wasted a pair of shots before she finally scored a hit on its leg, slowing it down and causing it to limp. The wolf suddenly fell dead as someone else shot it up.

“Keep them at a distance,” Selene warned the rest of her troops.

“Yeah, no kidding,” Logan replied over the radio link. “You think we want to fight those things in close quarters?”

They might be forced to at some point, but for now Alpha Wolf Platoon seemed to be holding out fine. Even with their diminished skills they kept the enemy at bay with carefully placed shots.

But then the low howl sounded again, audible even over the din of gunfire. And then something huge leaped out of the trees, coming right toward her.

Selene and everyone else around her dove in every direction as the boss slammed to earth, trying to pin them under its massive bulk. It missed, but the impact shook the ground beneath them.

She rolled to her feet and took aim, switching her rifle to full auto with one practiced motion. Selene unloaded the rest of her magazine into the gigantic beast, but the creature barely even flinched.

Yusuf was right. The boss monster was huge, at least the size of a bus with monstrous, pronounced fangs the size of her arms. Anyone on the receiving end of those would be dead before they could even realize it.

More of her troops trained their guns on the boss and opened fire, but the creature quickly leaped away into the undergrowth, out of sight.

“Do you want us to burn away the brush?” Gavin asked her over the radio link.

“Wait. We don't know what else it out there that we might disturb, and we don't want to flush it out. Not at a time like this.”

Many types of creatures weren't immediately hostile, but would become so if they were disturbed. Selene hadn't seen any so far, but setting fire to the area around them was a good way to stir them up. One wrong move and they could have hundreds of monsters swarming their position alongside the boss.

“Watch yourself,” Yusuf warned. “One of the things I noticed the last few times was that it likes to make a straight charge out of the undergrowth, and it's pretty much impossible to stop then.”

Selene heard the brush to her left suddenly crack, and then another loud howl filled the air. She looked on with a mixture of awe and horror as the gigantic creature charged out and grabbed one of her troops, crushing him in its jaws. Bullets seemed to do nothing to it.

And for some reason, Selene lost her cool. She advanced forward, blazing away at the thing's head with her assault rifle on full auto. Her gun clicked empty, and she quickly changed magazines.

But her actions caught the attention of the boss monster, and Selene suddenly realized she had just made a terrible mistake. The gigantic fen wolf reared back, preparing to pounce at her.

And then it howled, almost like it was in pain. That was when Selene realized a significant number of her platoon was beside her, closing the distance with their own guns blazing. Even something as tough as a boss monster couldn't stand up to that kind of barrage. The fen wolf fell to the ground, shuddered once, and died.