NOVEL WEB Chapter 11: Warhund
The smell of burnt gun oil and cleaning solvents mixed with body odor and salty stale sweat filled my nose. The unnaturally sharp scent of ozone hung in the air. Hot burning metal sparked somewhere in the rubble. And among all that was the reassuring scent tags of my teammates telling me I wasn't alone. They smelled like a mix of honey, lavender, and sandalwood. They smelled like safety. They smelled like family.
My body ached from a thousand abuses and my eyes burned. A pain in my right ankle told me that I needed to stop but I couldn't do that. I couldn't let down my team. I was on point and the second wave of drones was coming. Off in the distance the blue diamond of a waypoint glittered in my overlay.
Shells had pounded the town to rubble. Concrete walls jutted up from cracked foundations of what had once been single story buildings. Loose rocks and other debris shifted under my feet as I walked, threatening to twist my already hurt ankle and take me out of the fight. My mouth was dry and the hot midday sun was making me pant with exertion. I took a mouthful of chlorinated water from the hose clipped to my plate carrier, swished it around to wet my mouth, then swallowed.
We had already taken out one of the drones so they had to know we were here. Its death beacon would have revealed our position. The choice now was to run forward before simulated artillery shells dropped on our position or go slow and work our way through the ruined town in case there were other drones waiting for us.
A countdown had been running in my head since we shot the drone. It took five seconds to load an artillery gun, two to aim it, and another six for the shell to reach us and airburst. I braced for the incoming artillery shell and the mission failed notice, but none came.
"I think they're already here." I whispered in Döbian over the team mental link. "They didn't blast us because they would hit their own assets. Everyone, grab cover and get ready for a firefight. Bauer, launch a drone and see if you can spot them."
I felt each other member of the eight person team send a confirmation via our mental link. They understood and agreed. There was a soft thump of compressed air as the soda can sized drone launched from its tube. I watched it begin to silently circle the sky above us.
Bauer relayed the feed from the drone's target identification suite. Nothing but us moved in the ruins. So where were they? I inhaled deeply through my nose and tried to sort through the haze of battlefield smells for some sign of the enemy.
I smelled stone dust, wet dirt, spent explosives with their chemical tagants from the shelling weeks earlier, the rotting meat from rodents and other wildlife that had been killed and buried beneath the rubble. There was nothing that seemed out of the ordinary. We needed to press forward soon or we would fail the mission but I felt like I was missing something. Something important.
I stood up and looked around. It was dry as a bone and hadn't rained for days. So why was I smelling wet dirt? "I think someone has been digging." I said over the link. "Have the drone look for signs of recently disturbed soil. Maybe they're hiding underground."
A few seconds later an orange triangle popped up on my overlay indicating a possible threat. It was just ahead of us but we could circle around it easily enough. Then another one to my left popped up. I gripped my carbine tightly. Two would be trouble but we could manage.
Suddenly my vision was flooded with dozens of orange triangles as the drone found another batch of enemy spider holes. They were all around us, dug in and waiting, ready to pop up and fire once we entered the kill zone.
The way I saw it we had one distinct advantage, the drones were incapable of intuition. They would know we had stopped. But they had no way of knowing that we had spotted the ambush. They would patiently wait for their prey, forever if need be.
"We could spring the trap and retreat to force them to follow us." Bauer said over the link. "I say we draw them into an ambush of our own."
A bird's eye view of the battlefield appeared in the team link with the possible enemy positions marked in orange. They had us surrounded but there were fewer enemies behind us than in front. That was, assuming all the spider holes were occupied and the drones hadn't slunk off to reinforce other positions.
The software highlighted possible choke points where we could funnel them into a killzone. There weren't any good ones behind us. That was mostly open fields. But a hundred meters straight ahead of us past the plaza was a half destroyed building that would give us decent cover and force the enemy out into the open if they wanted to pursue.
I dropped a waypoint and plotted a course to it, bouncing from cover to cover. I heard Springer's voice through the link and pink dots marked two of the enemy positions closest to us. "Ja, this looks good. I can drop some 40mm grenades on their tin heads once we start the show."
Two yellow dots with arrows pointing away from us appeared where we had come through the broken walls. "I can mine here and here to catch a few of the ones behind us." Läufer said, marking where he would place the devices.
Red caution symbols appeared along our projected route to indicate possible booby traps. Our drone automatically scanned the path once I designated where we were planning to go. "Looks risky." Läufer said. "I can creep in and go to work on the closest one now. But we don't have enough time to deactivate all of them."
"Do it, but be careful." I said as a yellow X appeared on the map to mark the mine Läufer was going after. I watched the skinny Döbian get down on all fours and slowly creep up towards the spot where the mine was buried.
Pink dots popped up on top of the hazards in the alley that was our escape route. "I'll clear these with the grenade launcher."
The whole planning portion had only taken a few seconds but we were dangerously close to missing our deadline. We didn't have time for a prolonged fire fight. I charted a path through the town and let our drone go scout.
"We can't afford to get pinned down." I said, realizing I had a decision to make. "There's no point in taking out these drones and failing the mission. My ankle is shot so I'll bunker down once we're out of the killzone to buy the rest of you some time." I marked where I would break away from the team with a purple crown. To my surprise a pink shield icon popped up next to it.
"I too have weak ankles." Springer said over the link. "Besides, it is hard to run with all these grenades weighing me down. I should at least lighten my load before I go."
"If I could make a suggestion..." Turm rumbled. "I don't enjoy the idea of carrying this turret any further than I have to. Perhaps if you thinned their numbers and bought me enough time to set up I could have it cover our escape." He marked a spot on the map a hundred meters beyond where Springer and I were planning to hold them off.
"You'll need a second pair of hands to get it done quickly and hold off any bots that circle around." Läufer marked a yellow circle next to Turm's green tower icon. "But I'm almost done disarming this mine so whatever we do, we have to do it now because the mines are probably networked. Once I cut this wire all hell is going to break loose."
I considered the plan. If we held out for a minute then climbed over the wall behind us we could be on our way just as Turm's turret came online. The drones were nasty but they couldn't climb or jump very well. "Ja, Läufer set a countdown. The party starts on your mark."
A red three second timer appeared in the lower left corner of my vision. I stood up and shouldered my carbine, ready to start moving as soon as the countdown hit zero. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was time to go.