“Black Lead,” she said, using her new callsign.
“Black Lead, this is Alpha Wolf,” Selene answered, still using her old callsign to prevent any confusion. “We've come across a small side tunnel. What do you want us to do with it?”
“Hold position where you are,” Karen told her, “and wait for us to join you. We don't want you getting cut off if something comes out of there when you pass it.”
“Copy that, Black Lead.”
Karen turned and looked at her. “Should we sweep the side tunnel, or should we just ignore it for now?”
“Well, we ignored the ones we passed because we only had a single squad,” Nora informed her. “Since we have a full company we can probably spare a squad or two to sweep them out.”
“Do you want to be in charge of that? I'd do it myself, but I need to be in the main tunnel directing traffic.”
Nora nodded. “If you want, though I'm not going to put myself in charge. I'll advise, but leadership should be up to the sergeant. I'll take one squad. That should be more than enough to deal with it. And if not, well, we'll know better next time, won't we?”
Selene's squad was waiting for them about a thousand feet up the tunnel, past a slight bend.
“I didn't want to bypass this without orders,” Selene said, indicating the side passage with her gun.
Karen nodded. “Right. Move your squad back up to the vanguard position. Keep a thousand yards ahead of us, and follow the scouting protocols.”
“What about the side tunnel?” Selene asked.
“Already being taken care of,” Karen said. She activated her radio. “Allen, see my marker on your map? Bring your squad to it.”
“Are you sure that's a good idea, sending a rookie squad in by themselves? We have no clue what's back there,” Selene warned.
“Nora's going to be in charge of them,” Karen told her.
“Ah, that's a good idea. Thought still, they might need some backup, just in case.”
“Just what do you think is down here?” Karen asked. “The side passage isn't big enough for a giant chilus, and the squad has a flamethrower with them. They should be fine.”
Nora agreed with her. “Really, I think our biggest problem is going to be traps and the like. We haven't run into anything down here yet.”
“Yet,” Selene smiled grimly. “Famous last words.”
“You could try to not kill morale,” Nora said.
Selene snorted with laughter. “Oh come on, we know that there's going to be something dangerous down here, and that we're going to run into it eventually. That's why we're playing. It would be a pretty boring game if this place was completely deserted.”
“OK, fair point. Still, I think that one squad should be fine. That's thirteen guns when you count me in as well, so it should be plenty of firepower. Besides, they need to know how unforgiving this game can be.”
“That's a fair point too,” Selene shrugged. “OK, time for us to head out. Good luck on this end.”
“Good luck on your end as well,” Nora said in return.
Allen's squad had moved up and was being briefed by Karen. Nora took the opportunity to check her weapons and gear again. Once again she had traded her burst fire gun for a carbine. She also had added an incendiary grenade to her stock. The grenades were obscenely expensive and were in very short supply, so Nora would only use in the event of an emergency.
“Ready?” she asked Allen after Karen had finished the briefing.
“I'm ready,” Allen replied, though he sounded nervous. He was an assault class, carrying a submachine gun.
“What's your patrol file going to be?” Nora asked him. “Remember, we're going to have to go one fireteam at a time, since the halls are smaller.”
“What are your orders?” Allen asked him.
“The orders are for you to decide,” Nora told him. “I'm here as an adviser only. If I can make one suggestion though? Don't put your team up front. That's a good way to get yourself killed, and then we don't have a leader.”
“Right. Mack, lead with your fireteam, since you have a flamethrower. My team will go in next. Justin, your team brings up the rear.”
“Why have them there?” Nora questioned him as the others took up their positions.
“Because they have the other flamethrower. And because I don't want something else to sneak up behind us.”
Nora smiled. “Good logic. If I can make another suggestion?”
“What is it?”
“Have your team keep an eye on the ceilings. There's no telling what direction something might attack from inside a tunnel.”
“Got it,” Allen said. He passed the order onto the rest of his fireteam.
Nora watched the forward team make their way into the gloom of the side passage. She was certainly going to get a firsthand view of what the new guys were capable of.
Nothing. Nothing, nothing and still more nothing. That was all they had found through the first dozen rooms they had searched, and it was making Nora very uneasy. There were always quiet parts in underground tunnels; not every second could be a fight, and from a level design perspective it helped to increase the tension. But Nora had the feeling that they should have been attacked by now.
“Clear,” came the signal over her radio from the forward team searching yet another room.
“Does it usually take this long for something to attack?” Allen asked her.
“No,” Nora responded plainly.
“Do you have any idea what's going on, then?” he asked nervously.
Nora shook her head. “No clue. But these things happen sometimes. Just stay alert so we don't get caught off guard.”
Brave words, but she wasn't completely convinced of them herself. Alarm bells were going off in her head. Everything about this place just felt wrong. The rooms they had swept were relatively tidy, which didn't fit the post-apocalyptic setting at all. This place was supposed to be deserted and run down. Instead, it looked like it had been occupied and was organized.
Something was down here, and Nora could feel it in her bones. But what was it?
“Looks like there's one more room,” Mack said over the link. “We're breaching the door right now.”
Nora watched the fireteam moving up ahead. They pushed open the door to the room and stormed inside. There was a shout.
And then there was gunfire.
Allen quickly signaled the rest of the squad. “Move up to support the forward team. Move. Move!”
There was more firing up ahead. Nora heard shouting through the link.
“Cease fire! Cease fire!” Mack was shouting.
Nora grabbed Allen by the shoulder. “Hold on before we go storming in there,” she said. The gunfire had stopped.
“Sorry about that,” Mack said. “There's no enemies here. But I think you might want to see this.”
Allen shrugged and headed for the room. Nora followed behind him.
“I don't think I've ever seen anything like this,” she heard Mack say as Allen entered the doorway.
“What the...” came the response.
Nora made her way into the room, her carbine still out so she could use her gun light. What could be so shocking?
Then she saw it. “What...” she began, then trailed off. Words couldn't describe her shock.
Nora saw what had caused the false alarm as she entered the room. There was a chilus hanging from the ceiling, but it was dead. Upon closer inspection, it was suspended from a hook shoved deep into its flesh.
That wasn't the only thing hanging from the ceilings. There were other hooks with other corpses. More chilus, feral dogs, ryches, serpents, something that looked like a large toad. And most chilling of all, there were several human corpses hanging down as well.
“Is this common?” Allen asked, his voice shaky.
Nora didn't answer. Her brain was still trying to comprehend what they had found here.
The possibilities were disturbing, to say the least. So far they had only imagined th
at they would be up against enemy soldiers and wild animals inside the tunnels. But maybe there was more.
Could there be another faction hiding in the tunnels? And if so, what were they like? What were their goals, how did they fight, and what dangers did they pose?
Hydra's carefully laid timetable might very well be in pieces right now. If there-
Gunfire broke into her thoughts, this time coming from the rear. Nora heard the rush of a flamethrower firing. Justin's fireteam was burning their only exit out of this place. That meant only one thing; they were in serious trouble.
“Contact! Contact at the rear!” Justin was shouting over the radio.
Allen and Mack urged their teams back into the hallway to fight. Nora started to follow, then hesitated. She got on the radio with Karen.
“Black Lead, Black Lead, this is Wolf 2. We need Bravo 3 as backup. I say again, we need Bravo 3 as backup.”
“Trouble?” Karen asked.
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“I don't know,” Nora responded. “We need to abandon the mission. Have everyone fall back to the entrance to the first maintenance tunnel and we'll regroup there.”
“What the heck happened?” Karen demanded.
“Again, I don't know. But it just became really, really dangerous and we're not prepared to handle something like this right now. Not with new recruits.”
“Copy that, Wolf 2.”
The gunfire outside suddenly died.
“Are we clear?” Nora asked.
“Yeah, but...” Mack started to respond. His voice was scared.
“We lost Justin,” Allen said.
“It happens,” Nora said as she joined the rest of them.
Allen frowned. “I know. But...”
Mack was up ahead with the rest of his team. They were all on edge, Nora could tell.
“Look at this,” he said, signaling them forward.
Nora moved up to see what he was talking about. There was a bloodstain on the floor, a helmet with Barghest Company's emblem on it and nothing else. Other stains covered parts of the floor. They looked like blood as well, though their coloring was almost bronze in hue.
“Where's his body?” Allen asked.
Nora glanced over at him, startled. She had completely missed that part. A dead body wouldn't have disappeared so soon. And judging from the bronze-colored blood patterns, there should be more casualties...
“Did they drag the corpses with them?” she asked.
“We didn't see,” Mack said.
“And why would they drag off corpses? Nothing else does-”
Everyone raised their weapons as they heard noises coming down the corridor.
“Wolf 2, Wolf 2, come in,” Nora heard both over her radio and as an echo in the hall.
“We're here,” Nora said with a sigh of relief. “Did you guys run into the attackers?”
“What attackers?” came the reply. “We thought you were still fighting.”
“They retreated. They're carrying corpses as well, so they couldn't have gotten far.”
“Sorry Wolf 2, but we haven't run into anything.”
Nora felt a shiver of fear run down her spine. What were they facing in here?
CHAPTER 9
Hack and Slash
“I thought we were supposed to be the only ghosts,” Danny commented lightly.
Nora gave him a look. “Well, we ended up fighting something. We just don't know what they are, where they came from, or where they disappeared to.”
Zach frowned. To him this development was extremely worrying. “Well, they're physical beings, at least. You said that there was blood left?”
“At least, I think that's what it was,” Nora answered.
“So they're real as opposed to what? Spirits? Ghosts?” Danny asked.
Selene snorted. “Oh come on. We're playing a video game. Anything is possible.”
“Yeah, but they at least like to stick to semi-realistic things,” Danny said.
“We think,” Selene added.
“Yeah,” Danny said. He went quiet for a second. “So what does this mean for us?”
Zach wasn't sure. They were in the final stages of planning for the assault on the northern station, and most of their main forces were committed to that front. To add to the confusion, no one knew exactly what they were fighting. And there were yet more mysteries about them.
For starters, no one knew how their enemies killed. The squad's one casualty had been offed in the confusion of battle, and no one had noticed exactly how he had died. All that they knew was there was no gunfire; no one had heard or felt bullets going by them or had seen muzzle flashes, so that was out of the question.
The second mystery, and the one that most disturbed him, was the disappearance of the bodies. Corpses were an important part of World at War. In the case of slain enemies it allowed players to collect resources and to scan them for information. For the players themselves, they could loot the corpses of fallen friends to gain back their lost equipment. So what was going on in this situation? Were the corpses disappearing because of some new game mechanic? Or were they being dragged off? If that was true, why were they being dragged off?
And most disturbing to him was their discovery of the room they had dubbed the meat locker.
Zach had seen the place for himself. He had gathered every single Black Wolf member he could get his hands on and retraced Barghest Company's route. They had been armed to the teeth, ready for any sort of trouble that might befall them. None did, but the place disturbed him greatly.
What was its purpose, he wondered? Zach had been in plenty of bandit hideouts, decrepit bunkers and places that were essentially tombs, but he had never seen anything like that. There was just no sense to it, no rhyme or reason, and it made everyone nervous. Were they dealing with trophy collectors? Cannibals? Something else?
“So you still only lost one,” Danny was saying. “Was that really enough to have them withdraw?”
“There's no way that the new recruits should be dealing with something like this,” Nora said. “I'm not even sure what we're dealing with here, and we're expecting them to handle it? I don't think that's a good idea.”
“I agree. I think that the withdrawal was a good call,” Selene said.
Danny frowned. “So what do we do about it? We can't just leave it be, but we're pretty much stuck until we take the station.”
Zach thought about it for a moment. Hydra's reserves had already been committed to various operations. They had Dragon Battalion with them for the assault on the subway station. Knight Battalion was busy up north, and they had been reinforced by Rogue Battalion.
“I'll try to get in contact with Anna and Liz,” Zach said. “They might be able to help us, at least. But Barghest Company is still going to have to take the lead. We can't switch our timetables right now. And we need to have Bravo 3.”
“Not leaving us with many options,” Selene muttered.
Zach nodded to her. “I know. But they're going to have to pull their weight in the alliance, no matter how raw they are. I don't like it, but that's how it has to be right now.”
“They're going to get slaughtered,” Nora said in a singsong voice that didn't match her expression.
“Jeeze, are they really that bad?” Zach asked.
Nora stuck out her tongue. “No, they're fine. They're raw, but they have skills. But still, they don't have the ability that veteran troops possess, and that could mean serious trouble.”
“So you're saying that they're not ready,” Danny said flatly.
“What I'm saying is that they might not be very efficient,” Nora elaborated. “They simply don't have the skill level.”
“That never stopped us,” Selene said. “I see your point, but they're trying to join Black Wolf. And you know what that means...”
Nora gave a slight smile. “Our calling card is to do the insane things that no one else will try.”
“That's what we al
ways do,” Selene replied with a grin. “Attacking a stronghold on the first day with just four of us? Tackling the overdrive bunker with just eight? Walking through the subway with eight members in our team? Why is this any different?”
Zach nodded along in agreement. The simple fact was, they were risk takers, and it had started from the very beginning. He, Danny and Selene had been beta testers for the game and were very experienced in the combat system when the game had launched. While others were still getting used to the virtual reality, they had taken the time to establish themselves using their skill, cunning and a bit of luck.
It was all about confidence, Zach thought to himself. Their confidence had propelled them to great heights, because they held the belief that they could take on difficult situations and come out on top. Their frontal attack on their first stronghold had been almost suicidal, but they had triumphed because of their skill and their aggression.
Those were traits that the new recruits would have to learn if they wanted to be a part of Black Wolf Company, and it meant even more for the rangers as a whole. Aggression, stealth, confidence, cunning, all of those would have to be learned before they were worthy. And the best way to learn them was by trial and error.
So like it or not, Barghest Company was going to stay on the front lines. They couldn't spare them in any case, and it would be their proving ground.
Zach voiced as much to the others. “Barghest needs to learn, and they'll do it best if they're active. I'll try to get Redd Foxx to loan some support squads, but there's no guarantee.”
“They do have some veteran leaders,” Danny pointed out. “You two and Karen should help to put some steel into them.”
“It would be really helpful if we had a veteran Black Wolf team with us,” Selene said.
Zach sighed. “I can't do that. But I will give you guys some backup. I'll assign Miko to you, and that's all you're getting. Good?”
No sight. No scent. No sound.
Zach kept repeating the mantra taught to them by Redd Foxx over and over in his head. Black Wolf was creeping into the subway station, trying to get as close as possible to some of the enemy positions before the real attack started. They would use grenades to destroy or suppress them, leaving the way open for Marauder to begin their storm assault.
Fang: A World at War Novel (World at War Online Book 3) Page 9