Read Online Deception City: A World at War Novel (World at War Online Book 5) by Mitchell T. Jacobs - Free Book Online Page B

Selene ducked down as more passed close to her ear. Ragnarok might had been caught off guard, but they certainly weren’t caught with their pants down. Enemy units had rallied around the shoreline and began fight back with a fury, pouring fire onto the river craft skimming the waves in front of them.
    Doubtless the entire operation would be analyzed back at base, combed over for every scrap of information they could find. How fast could the enemy respond, how they organized themselves, how effectively could they fight, and so on and so forth. It could determine whether alliance command thought an amphibious assault was feasible or not.
    But right now, that didn’t matter. Right now, the only thing Selene was focused on was suppressing the defenses so Barghest didn’t get themselves killed.
    “Danny, can you move your section further to the north?” she asked.
    “We’ll try, but Ragnarok’s not making it easy,” he replied.
    “Do your best. I want to see if we can catch them in a crossfire.”
    “Right, but should we call it off? Looks like this beach is pretty heavily defended.”
    Selene had to consider that suggestion. More and more Ragnarok troops were beginning to flood the area, and anyhow, they didn’t have any specific objectives. Carnage was the order of the day, and they didn’t want to risk their veteran troops for some worthless spot.
    It would have been different in the older version of World at War, but the effects of the sync system had changed their approach. Losing troops didn’t mean just a temporary setback, it meant having to retrain them to get them back up to standard as well.
    She couldn’t fault the change, though, because death had been far too cheap under the old system. Now it paid to be cautious and mindful. It brought a whole new strategic element to the game, because now they had to weigh the worth of their troops against the worth of their objectives.
    “Let’s see what we can do,” Selene told him. “If we can’t make headway then I agree.”
    “Roger that.”
    Selene switched frequencies. “Thunder, Thunder, this is Alpha Wolf. Do you copy?” she asked, calling out to the mortar section.
    “Alpha Wolf, this is Thunder,” came the reply from the leader of the Bravehart crews manning the mortars. “Go ahead.”
    “I’m sending you coordinates,” she said. “Can we get a few shells on target?”
    “Copy that, Alpha Wolf,” Thunder replied. “We’ll fire a three round barrage apiece and go from there.”
    “Thanks,” she replied. Selene sent the coordinates, her best guess as to the actual position of the enemy troops. Hopefully they could at least suppress them, because the weight of fire coming from the shore was steadily increasing. They hadn’t lost any boats yet, but it wouldn’t stay that way if this continued.
    “This is Black Lead. We’re approaching our landing area,” Karen alerted them all.
    “Hold tight,” Selene told her. “We’re running into heavy opposition. Hopefully it won’t last much longer.”
    They might be able to fend off Ghost Battalion’s attack craft, but how would they fare against a mortar barrage?
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    S hells screamed down on the enemy positions, throwing clouds of debris and dirt into the air. Danny could see the occasional body mixed in as well. The effect was devastating.
    At least, that’s what it looked like from a distance in the fading light, but he knew better. Having watched the mortars in action several times before and come under artillery fire himself, he knew things often appeared worse than they actually were. Coming under fire was never pleasant, truth be told, but it wouldn’t annihilate a unit that knew how to take cover.
    Danny took out his binoculars and surveyed the damage, trying to assess just how effective the shelling was. From his vantage point it didn’t look promising. He could see the shapes of Ragnarok troops hugging cover, but they would be up and fighting again once the bombardment