Commando City: A World at War Novel (World at War Online Book 7) (19 page)

“Agreed,” Anna said. “Let's figure out where we want them to go and what we want them to do.”

It wasn't much. But right at the moment, it was all they could do.

“
T
hanks for meeting with me
,” Zach said.

Selene looked across the map table at him. “Not to be weird or anything, but this is unusual. I'm kind of surprised that there aren't more of us here.”

“Well, there's a reason for that,” he said. “There's a few things I'd like to go over with you before I address the rest of the battalion. Or at least what we have here.”

That certainly didn't bode well, Selene thought to herself. Normally they'd simply call a meeting of the entire command staff. Were there backroom politics going on here? If so, she felt the urge to walk out the door. Selene never liked the political aspect of the game, preferring to focus on the parts that she could control. Wheeling and dealing left too much ambiguity, and she preferred to be in situations where the possible outcomes were clear.

No backstabbing, no negotiations, none of that. Selene wanted to go face to face with the enemy, pitting skill against skill and deciding things by pure competition. She had no problem with sneak attacks, misdirection and the like, but those were just a part of the battlefield. The others could deal with the politicking and the infighting. She'd take coming under heavy fire any day over something like that.

“What's this really about?” she asked.

Zach hesitated for a moment. “Well… I might be out of commission for a while, so I may have to turn things over to someone else. And the list of candidates is pretty short right now.”

“What do you mean, out of commission? Is it something that has to do with work?”

Zach nodded. “Yeah. Things are going to be picking up for the next few weeks while we're trying to get a bunch of important things settled. That's going to cut into the amount of time I can be online, so I might not be able to plan very well.”

“And that means you need someone else to do it,” Selene summarized. “Here's a question though. Why me? Why not someone else?”

“Anna would be in charge if she was here, but of course that's not happening,” Zach said. “Same with Liz and Nora.”

“There's Karen,” Selene pointed out. She and her unit had been caught in a pincer by enemy forces and completely annihilated, placing her in charge of Barghest once again. “Doesn't she have a better claim to it than me since she's a company commander?”

“Karen...” Zach paused. “In some ways yes, she has a better claim to it than you do. But she's been mostly concentrated on raiding and stuff like that. Same with Neil, if he were available. You and Danny both have more experience, and you've been around this types of operations. And since Danny's in Shorewood...”

“That leaves me,” Selene finished. “OK, but I think you might be overestimating my command capabilities. I can handle the battle side fine, and the logistics side isn't too bad, but trying to politick and get what we need out of the military council? Are you really sure you want me doing that?”

“Why, are you planning on holding a gun to their heads?” he asked.

She had to laugh at the remark. “Well, I wan't planning on that, but now you gave me the idea.”

“For the record, I don't condone that idea. Besides, that's just going to annoy people. I'm pretty sure making them retrain all their stats isn't going to go over well.”

“Yeah, I guess threats of harm don't go over well in a game where you're effectively immortal,” Selene agreed.

Then again, retraining could be a pain. Selene had plenty of frustration stored up from getting back into fighting form. Constant practice had taken away some of the rust, but she still wasn't in prime shape. Only real combat would bring the edge back, but at this point there were few places to get experience, and most of those were extremely dangerous.

Their initial fallback option had been to send troops back to the south again, training them in the wilds outside of Indianapolis. But with so much happening so fast up here that was no longer an option. Even though they might not be particularly combat effective they could still give a good showing, and that made them a good guard force. Ghost Battalion's units were currently scattered throughout Cudahy and the airport district, guarding against any possible sneak attacks.

“I think you're up to up to the task,” Zach said. “And I'm not going to completely disappear. I'll be around, but the amount of time I can dedicate to planning is going to be limited. I can act on your behalf to the council, though.”

“So you want to act as our advocate? That doesn't sound very relaxing.”

“Are you saying that you want to do it?”

Selene shook her head. “No thanks, I'll let you handle something like that. You seem to get better results, and I think they'd take you more seriously.”

Zach shrugged. “I don't know about that. You're pretty respected around the alliance, so they'd probably be willing to listen to you. It's not like you're a newbie or from a smaller company that just joined.”

“Maybe, maybe not. That still hasn't saved us from getting chucked into the grinder,” Selene pointed out. “How much longer are we going to have to deal with this? We're being put into fights without adequate intelligence or equipment, and we're suffering for it. Do they really think we can keep this up and win? Because I don't think we're getting enough support.”

“Is that just you, or do you think there's more people that agree with you?” Zach asked. “Because that's what I told Gina and David.”

“I think it's pretty apparent in the rest of the battalion. They're frustrated.”

“I know. I am too. But we need to be careful too, because I think Ragnarok's getting in our heads.”

Selene frowned. “How so?”

“Haven't you noticed at all? We're trying anything and everything to win right now, and that's not our style. Usually we'd be a lot more cautious, but I think we've gotten frustrated and are trying to win as soon as possible. I admit, I'm having problems with that as well.”

“We have to win,” Selene replied. “I don't see anything wrong with that.”

“No, but I think Cudahy's still in our heads, and that's causing us to rush.”

That made her think for a moment. Black Wolf had taken a pounding in the battle for that district, cut off inside their tower fortress and at the mercy of outside attackers. They had to endure repeated assaults, each more furious than the last, and could do little except shoot back. Selene remembered feeling trapped, exposed, vulnerable to anything that Ragnarok wanted to throw at them.

She thought she had put it behind her. She thought everyone had, but the memories of the fight might still linger in the back of their minds. They wanted to go back on the offensive, to take the fight to the enemy, but doing it while throwing caution to the wind would only cause them problems. Ghost Battalion was no stranger to gambles, but they were always undertaken with plentiful information on hand. They always knew the odds and how to tip them in their favor.

But now? Their last two operations had gone down without sufficient reconnaissance, and they had suffered greatly for that mistake. Whatever was causing it, she couldn't allow it to continue, especially if she was going to be in charge.

It might not be that simple, though. Selene knew in her mind that their previous attempts had failed due to poor planning and impatience. She knew that they needed to take their time to get everything right. But still, her competitive streak gnawed at her, urging her to avenge their previous losses. She wanted to take the fight to Ragnarok, and she wanted to do it now.

“This is going to be tough,” she spoke up. “We're going to have to balance caution and speed, and that's not a cut and dried situation.”

“We've done it plenty of times in the past,” Zach said.

“Not like this. The deadline they've given us is really, really tight,” Selene argued. “At least the other times we had a little more wiggle room.”

Zach leaned forward onto the edge of the map table. “So you want to delay it a bit?”

“I'd love to delay it a bit, but the clock's ticking,” she said. “Anna's force isn't going to last up there if they don't get support. And Spectre...”

“I'm surprised they're still holding out, honestly. I would have thought that Ragnarok would have overwhelmed them by now, but according to Neil they're still in fighting shape.”

“Where the heck are they getting ammo?”

“At first they were taking it off the dead,” Zach explained. “Then when Ragnarok figured out what they were doing and started to remove the corpses right after battles they switched to raiding NPC patrols.”

“I'm surprised they've been able to sneak through the lines, then.”

Zach zoomed the map onto the southern end of the Shorewood District. “When you take a look at the bigger picture it's actually not all that surprising. The Valkyries are the only force we've encountered so far, and they have about a company of troops. That means they have to cover a pretty wide area with just a hundred or so, and they can't do it all. I don't think they were expecting to have to defend themselves from all sides.”

Selene agreed. Hydra had used a similar system in the past, taking advantage of each district's boundaries. They could use the geometry to their advantage, keeping the front short to allow them to concentrate their forces at critical points. Skilled commanders could maneuver enough to continually flank the enemy, constantly putting them on the back foot even if the attacking force was outnumbered.

But with such small forces at their disposal it only took one wrench in the works to completely destroy a plan. Ghost Battalion's arrival into the district had likely caused that, even with their scattered landings and highly disorganized nature. If there was one thing she could be thankful for it was that their enemy was in as much of a predicament as they were.

But that didn't change the fact that the Valkyries had won the first two rounds. If indeed they were the only Ragnarok force in the district that meant the had defeated a superior force twice. Ghost Battalion had double their numbers, and even the problems of an air drop or an amphibious assault shouldn't have caused them this many problems.

On the other hand, Selene had experience on the other side as well. During the fighting outside of Green Bay she and the rest of her force had managed to hold off a massive Ragnarok force, including the Valkyries. Terrain played a significant part in winning the fight, and the defender's edge gave them even more. Their enemies only managed to break through and get into their trenches because of their sheer determination, not to mention firepower applied in the right places.

Was that the secret? They might not be able to win through finesse, but if they could go toe to toe with the enemy they might be able to overwhelm them with sheer force. Ghost Battalion still had a few trump cards left to play, and if they could use them in the right places they might be able to cause a critical break.

She couldn't count on that, though. Having tangled with the Valkyries many times she knew how resilient they could be. Though they were nominally light infantry Selene believed they could take on a heavily-armed line infantry company like Marauder or Sacred Sword and win. Black Wolf could match them at this point, but their last fight around Green Bay had been bloody.

“We have to figure out a way to beat them at their own game,” Selene said. “Bashing our heads against a brick wall is getting us nowhere. They were waiting for us at the landing zone.”

Zach nodded. “Which makes me think that they anticipated our move.”

“Right. That means we should probably try to come up with another solution. Something out of the ordinary that they won't anticipate. The stunt that Redd Foxx pulled might be one.”

“That's up to you,” Zach shrugged. “As I said before, I'm leaving the planning and command in your hands.”

“OK then.”

“Are we good?”

Selene nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

Zach looked down at his wrist menu. “Then I have to split. There's stuff I need to prepare for tomorrow.”

He logged out a second later. Selene looked at the map table for a moment, wondering where to begin. Then she opened up her wrist menu and sent a series of messages.

She might not be able to do much at the moment, but that would change in a few hours.

“
S
o
, you're in charge?” Gavin asked as he entered the command center.

Selene nodded. “Yeah. As per the orders of our commander, I'm the one stuck planning the next operation. Which is why I want your help.”

She looked around at the others; Robbie, Karen, Gray. Two company commanders and someone on her level, and yet she had been the one chosen for the job. It made her feel odd, in a way, but Karen and Robbie had made no signs of protest. She knew Gray might have wanted command, but she had seniority over him, at least.

“So we're going to have another go,” Robbie said. “And judging from how the last ones went...”

“Yeah, I heard it was bad,” Karen agreed. She had been caught in the wrong place with a few of her company and were slaughtered by the NPC garrison, having played no part in the larger battle.

“You're probably lucky you missed it,” Selene told her. “Most of us were killed in the first wave by the dive bombers. The ones that didn't got charged by the Valkyries and bayoneted. I ended up in the second category, unfortunately.”

“Yeah, it sounds like something I'd want to miss.”

“So anyhow,” Robbie cut in, “how are we going to go about things differently? Do we try a different landing zone?”

“The problem with that is our choice of landings zones is limited,” Selene said. “If we don't go for one we have to go for one of the other two, and Ragnarok has to know that. They'll call down their dive bombers and it'll be a repeat of last time.”

“Are there any other options besides coming in by water?” Karen asked.

“There's always the prospect of an airborne assault, but that puts our helos at risk,” Robbie said. “Unless we can get good air cover we're going to take heavy losses.”

Selene shook her head, feeling the frustration rising inside of her. “Well, unless Magic Battalion manages to take Jone Harbor those are our only ways in. Unless you want to try going in by parachute.”