Chapter 51

Freya found herself a new roof top to survey the area deep in the city. She was currently sipping from a nutrition drink and waiting for the sun to rise. She had wandered around after calling in the artillery strike yesterday hoping to stumble on to the command center. She gave up just after the sun had set. She figured she would spend the night on a roof and reset. Maybe come with a better plan than wandering around and hoping for the best.

She had tried accessing the city net, but the enemy wisely had shut it down. She had no access what-so-ever. Her next plan was to try to find a way into their network and hack it, but this required her to gain access to enemy’s equipment. That meant finding an enemy with access and the equipment. That led her back to wandering around looking for the enemy.

The other plan was to bring the enemy to her. Create some kind of event, like blowing something up, and make the enemy come to her. She could either get the access she needed or maybe follow them back to wherever they were hiding. The problem with that was the enemy was using drone trackers. They could track her through her active camouflage. Getting caught by the drones meant getting zeroed out and failing her objective. That was unacceptable.

She crushed her empty nutrition box in her hand and put it in her backpack. “Never leave anything behind that tells the enemy where you’ve been. It might tell them where you’re going.” She quoted basic boot camp information to herself.

That gave her an idea. “What about going back to the foot of Third platoon’s bridge, and maybe see if anything survived the shelling? Maybe find some way to track the enemy back to their command center?” She asked herself.

“It’s better than wandering around hoping for the best.” She replied to herself. Shrugging she got up and walked back to the door to the stairs. The sun had still not risen yet when she walked out of the building. She could see one of the moons setting in the distance while the other bigger one was not far behind. She turned back around and headed towards the bridge.

It took her about thirty minutes to get to the bridge only to find Third platoon had taken the city side of the bridge and fortified it. She also found three familiar icons on her mini map. With a big smile she walked down the street.

“Look who finally decided to show up.” Patterson said over the radio.

“Magic, get under cover. The spy satellite can see you.” Toast said angrily over the radio.

“It’s drones. They’re using drone trackers.” Freya said as she turned the corner and spotted her squad hiding under camo nets that were covering large areas around the foot of the bridge. “Get too close and they can see right though your active camo.”

“How do you avoid that?” Patterson replied.

“My drone can spot their drone.” Freya said, shrugging as she walked up to her friends.

“Hacking!” Tike said, trying to disguise her voice with a cough.

“Sensor drones, especially sensor alert drones can spot them.” Toast said, sounding annoyed.

“The problem is that they can spot your drone right back. It does give you enough time to run away, but they’ll know someone’s in the area. And Tike, shut the hell up. No one in this squad or platoon hacks. Get over yourself. Next time I hear anything like that again, I’m fining you. Yes, Corporal?” He said walking right into her personal space.

When Tike didn’t say anything back Toast barked much louder. “Yes, Corporal?” He asked again.

“Yes, Corporal.” Tike said finally.

“Good, Magic what do you have for me?” He asked, turning to her.

“Not much. I left the area to hide and look for a way to hack into their systems, but they shut down their public net. I didn’t find any access points for their secured systems.” She told him editing out the fact that she wandered around the city aimlessly for most of the afternoon.

“That’s fine, Tike can track their communications back to them.” Toast said turning back to Tike. She pulled out a hand held device from her backpack and showed it to them.

“It’s short range, but if we can get within two miles I can tell what direction their communications are coming from. I use it to track bombers with wireless devices back to the trigger man.” Tike told them quietly.

“Good, that’s the plan then. We will use Magic’s sensor drone to flush out their trackers and we’ll use the Tike’s device to find an access point if we’re really lucky we’ll find their command center.” Toast said nodding to them.

“Magic, if you need any supplies get them from Third platoon’s stock. I’m going to talk to their sergeant and update them on our plan. I’ll be back in five. Be prepared to move out when I get back.” He told them right before he turned around and walked off.

“It’s a Model 68.” Tike said quietly to his retreating back.

“What’s a model 68?” Patterson asked. Freya was glad he asked as she wanted the answer as well, but there was no way she was going to talk to Tike right then.

“The scanner. It’s called a model 68 Verda scanner. Most people just call it a Model 68.” Tike said looking at her feet.

“Cool, that clears that up.” Patterson said, sounding amused. “You better get going to pick up what you need from Third platoon, Magic. He won’t be long.”

Freya nodded and went off in search of food. She still had enough of everything else, but she was getting low on her nutrition drinks. She also wanted some information on the armored company that was supposed to be here by now. She found a guy, who had some extra to give her.

“They got taken out.” The platoon’s drone operator told her after she asked him if he knew what happened to the tanks. “Not sure how, but the entire company got taken out. They respawned back on the Monarch. They have to wait for their tanks to reprint then they’ll drop somewhere on the other side of the bridge and drive over. Best guess right now is about another day, day and a half. Once they have their tanks reprinted they have to wait until the Monarch is in position to drop them again.”

“So, we got a day or maybe a day and half to take this city. Sounds fun.” Freya said with a smile.

“What did you say your name was again?” He asked her, giving her an odd look.

“Freya, but people call me Magic.” She told him with a grin.

“Oh, damn. I heard about you.” He said leaning back.

Freya, kept a smile on her face hoping he wasn’t going to be one of those people who thought she was a low life earthling. She was not sure she could go through that after what Tike had said.

“Yeah, I used your drop ship to respawn twice so far. I got to say having a respawn point on a mission is awesome.” He told her with a big smile. “They say you’re a crazy good sniper. I heard them say that you can kill a bat fly two miles out.”

“Not sure what a bat fly is, but maybe?” Freya said smiling.

“It’s a nasty biting fly from back home. Look, if you’re not doing anything after this mission, You wanna go out to Chiva’s with me? Or if you’re into dancing we could go to Waynes.” He asked her with a smile.

“I got a boyfriend.” She said letting him down gently.

“Well, if you’re ever in the market for some fun without a boyfriend send me a message.” He said with a slick smile. He told her his name, but she forgot it as soon as she walked away. She had no plans of ever going out with him.

She met up with the rest of her squad minus Toast who was still talking to Third platoon’s sergeant. Patterson was leaning up against a metal barrier with his huge gun leaning on his chest. He had one foot up on the barrier and the other on the ground. He was perfectly posed looking off into the distance. Tike was crouched down beside him with her rifle causally pointed down range. She too was looking off in the same direction as Patterson was. Freya couldn’t help but take a picture from her HUD like a screen shot. Smiling, she shook her head as she saved the picture in her personal files. As much as Tike pissed her off she was still as much as her squad mate as Patterson was.

“Okay, we’re good to go.” Toast said as he came walking up from behind them. “Same formation as before. Magic, keep an eye of your sensor drone. If it picks up anything stop and back up Immediately. Tike, Tell magic where we are going. I want to get as close as we can before we are picked up by the drones. Once we get a good heading, we will turn and circle around the drones range. I want to get a second heading that is roughly ninety degrees from the first heading. With any luck the two lines will cross and we will have our target coordinates.”

“And if they don’t?” Tike asked slowly standing up.

“Then that means that the command center is either mobile or we are getting some kind of interference. We will plan for that if it comes up. Suggestions?” Toast asked.

“How will we know if we are following the right signal?” Patterson asked.

“We call in an artillery strike. If we get a new signal we do it again. Look people, this city is locked down. The odds that the signal is not a military target is pretty low. We are going to keep calling in strikes until there are no strong signals left in the city. Tike, you got a heading for us yet?” Toast asked as he adjusted his rifle.

“Not yet. We need to get within at least two mile of the signal before I can get a read. I’m only picking up our signals right now.” Tike replied.

“Okay, let's go find that needle in the haystack.” Toast said motioning Freya to move ahead of him.

“It’s not that bad. We just need to bump into a patrol and get them to call into their platoon. We follow the heading towards the platoon and get them to call into their command center. We follow the signal.” Tike replied, shrugging.

“Sounds like a plan. Anyone want to pick a direction? Magic, did you spot any patrols while you were out?” Toast asked.

“I didn’t see anything and I checked this area.” Freya told him dropping waypoints around the area she had wandered around in the day before.

Toast nodded. “That reduces the chances of the command center being in the center of the city. I would have at least one patrol roving around in this area to alert me if the enemy was advancing towards my position.” Toast said quietly over his suit speakers.

“That means that they are either on this side of the city, the north, or in the east. Let’s do a circuit. Let’s stay here in the west and walk around here and circle to the north side of the city then head back down from the east. Worst case we circle back to our platoon and see what Torres says.” Toast said dropping waypoints for Freya to follow.

“First one who gets zeroed out buys the first round at Chiva’s. And none of the crap that Toast drinks. I want the good stuff.” Patterson said lifting his huge gun up.

“Everyone’s a critic. Fine, but I want cheese sticks with my drink.” Toast replied as he motioned for Freya to lead them.

“You die, you buy.” Patterson replied behind Freya as she moved out.

Freya led them up the west side of the city looking for the enemy. Patterson followed her with Tike behind him. Toast followed in the rear position. Freya kept to the main streets hoping to spot a patrol, but for the first hour the streets were empty. There weren’t even any civilians on the street. She could see a few people in the windows as she walked unseen by them but they were all dressed in civilian clothing. She was not sure if the enemy had people in civilian clothing watching the streets, but standard practice was that unless they looked suspicious she couldn’t do anything to them. The whole time she kept an eye on her mini map checking to see if her sensor drone picked up anything, but nothing popped up on it.

Roughly a half hour into the second hour a waypoint popped up on her mini map. It pinged her position so she stopped and looked back confused. Tike was waving then pointed to the left. Freya nodded and led her squad down the street to the next intersection where she turned west. She stopped about a hundred feet down the street at the next intersection to look back at Tike. Several waypoints popped up from Tike on Freya’s mini map. It showed a path that led northwest. Freya nodded and turned back around to follow the waypoints.

Freya led her squad down several streets turning left then right a few times as she slowly worked her way further west. Closing in on the last waypoint, Freya stopped about five hundred feet away at the edge of a tight alleyway. She peeked out of the mouth of the alley and looked in the direction of the last waypoint, but didn’t spot anything. She checked her mini map, but it remained blank only showing civilians in the building on either side of her. She looked back as the rest of the squad closed on her position.

Freya shrugged her shoulders and shook her head no when they got close enough to see her. Tike broke her position and walked up beside her. She gently pushed Freya back and moved into her position to look around. Freya looked back at the rest of her squad. Patterson had moved back to cover their rear while Toast had moved up to the middle position. He looked at Freya and used the hand motion asking her what was wrong.

“No enemy in sight.” She replied using her hands. He nodded and waited where he was.

Tike tapped Freya’s shoulder and when she turned around Tike shrugged. Four new waypoints appeared around the area on Freya’s map. She looked at the map then back a Tike who held up her wrist and then shrugged. Freya took that to mean that there was no signal now, but the enemy had to be close. She nodded her understanding toTike and turned back around to Toast.

She made a circle in the air with her finger then slowly counted from one to four showing which waypoint she wanted to go to first then which direction she wanted to follow to hit all the waypoints that Tike had dropped. Toast nodded and showed his approval by holding up his thumb. Freya smirked at him and turned back around. She gently pulled on Tike arm so that she could take her position back. When Tike had retreated about ten feet behind her, Freya stepped into the open.

When nothing shot at her, she ran down the street to her left. She stopped at a small side street and peeked around the corner. She didn’t see anything and nothing showed up on her mini map. She turned back around to see Tike waiting at the edge of the alleyway. She motioned for Tike to come forward before she turned back to guard their forward position. Freya felt Tike arrive as the woman bumped into her back. She didn’t bother turning around trusting her squad mate to cover her back as they waited for the rest of the squad to make it to their position.

A few minutes later Freya felt a tap on her shoulder and she nodded back not turning around. She waited a few more seconds before she felt Tikes hand on her shoulder again. This time it stayed. Freya stayed in a crouch position as she turned the corner with her weapon at the ready. She felt the hand leave her shoulder as she quickly jogged down the street. She stopped at the edge of some cement stairs that led up to some brownstone buildings. She kept her rifle pointed down the street, but she didn’t see anything on her mini map from her drone or in her field of vision.

She absently checked the time left on her drone while she waited for the others to arrive. She spotted that she only had three minutes and some change before her drone ran out of power. She killed it and sent out the next one from her cloud forge. The forge started creating the next drone as soon as the drone left. She felt a tap on her shoulder a few seconds later, but this time Freya held up her hand telling Tike to wait. As soon as the drone spread out and her mini map showed it was at its maximum position she dropped her hand. Tike tapped her shoulder again and Freya leaned out waiting for Tike’s signal for her to go.

Freya felt Tikes hand on her shoulder again and like before it didn’t leave until she started to move. She ran to the edge of the street and looked in the direction of the second waypoint. As she did so, a bunch of red icons appeared on Freya mini map. Freya cursed as she realized that she was looking in the wrong direction and quickly shifted her weapon to point in the opposite direction than the waypoint. About forty feet away walking away from her was a large patrol of enemy soldiers.

Freya frantically waved towards the opposite side of the street and ran where she pointed. She took up her position again but this time on the other side of the street they had come up from. She kept her weapon pointed at the slowly retreating patrol as she felt the others reach her position. She felt someone's hand on her back gently pulling her back. She pulled up her rifle and moved backwards to let Toast take her position.

Freya looked back to see Tike covering the street to their right while Patterson was covering their rear. She nodded to herself and took up covering the front while Toast looked at the retreating squad. Few minutes later Toast retreated back a few steps and got everyone's attention.

He motioned at Freya and Patterson then he dropped a waypoint down the street where the patrol was walking down. He tapped his rifle and held up one finger before he pointed at Freya. He then motioned with his two of his fingers to run away. When she nodded he turned and pointed at Tike then himself and a new waypoint appeared. He then pointed at Tikes wrist. He stood still for a second afterward and a timer appeared on Freya’s mini map with five minutes on it. It was currently frozen though and stayed at five minutes.

Freya nodded with the rest of her squad. Toast nodded back then using his fingers and gave them a three second countdown. As soon as the last finger fell Freya ran across the street with Patterson at her heels. She ran to the side street and kept going, not stopping at the intersection as the timer slowly counted down. She went down the street to a smaller street that parallel the street that the patrol was on. She kept running until she was ahead of the patrol. On her mini map she counted about twenty enemy soldiers on either side of the street. She turned up the small side street and got into position in front of the enemy patrol.

She noted that she still had a minute and some change left. She aimed for the leading member of patrol and waited. Her HUD showed a sergeant fifty feet behind him, but she didn’t aim for him. She needed someone to call in her shot. As soon as the counter dropped to zero Freya fired. The enemy soldier in the lead position dropped. Freya immediately turned around and past Patterson as she ran down the small side street. She could see his icon on her mini map following her. The enemy stopped and took cover and returned fire giving them more than enough time to run away.

Several blocks away Freya came upon the rest of her squad. As she did so a new waypoint appeared in the west of the city. Toast motioned for them to go and pushed Freya to run faster. She ran as fast as she could towards the waypoint guessing that Toast wanted them to get as close as they could while the enemy platoon was sending and receiving radio traffic. The waypoint she was heading towards disappeared on her mini map and a new one appeared much further away in the same direction she was heading. It wasn’t a straight shot though. She had to make her way through the maze of back streets to get to the new waypoint.

A few minutes later the waypoint disappeared and a new waypoint appeared on her mini map pinging her position a few times until she stopped. Freya stopped and took cover behind a large car. She took a peek behind her and saw the others run up to her position. TIke made a less than sign with her hand then held up a single finger.

Toast nodded and a new waypoint appeared in the north about two miles from where they were. Then another waypoint appeared just outside the city. Toast tapped Freya on the front of her shoulder. Then held up a single finger then made a corner of a square with his hand. Then he held up his second finger tell him that he wanted her to go to the first waypoint then turn and go to the second waypoint. Or that was what Freya hoped he wanted her to do. She nodded and drew on the ground what she hoped he had said. Toasted nodded yes in return.

She did as he asked and went to the first waypoint then turned down the next street and headed towards the second waypoint which ended at a highway overpass. The rest of the squad converged on her. Tike nodded her head and a waypoint appeared on Freya’s mini map.

Toast turned Freya around and tapped her cloud forge on her back then spun her around again and shrugged his shoulder asking if she picked up any drones. She shook her head no. Toast turned his head away and looked in the direction of where the signals were coming from. He turned around again and slowly nodded. He pointed at Freya’s back and then at the sky.

Freya was pretty sure he was asking her to send up a surveillance drone with the coordinates. She had to stop the next sensor drone and retask her forge to build a surveillance drone. It was able to use some of what it had already built on the sensor drone for her surveillance drone. She looked at Toast and held up hand and spread her fingers then added the motion of less than. Toast nodded his understanding.

As soon as the count down on the build was complete she sent the drone up programing it to send everyone in her squad and everyone in the command staff a feed of her drone. She almost forgot to add Done, but got him added just before the drone left the forge. On the bottom of the feed, in white, was the coordinates of the waypoint Tike had given her. The drone rose up and flew towards the coordinates. A few seconds later a large military bus appeared in the feed in a parking lot of what looked like a food super center store. The parking lot was empty except for the passively camouflaged armored bus. A few seconds later Freya heard a crack then a loud boom and the parking lot where the bus was parked was gone. In its place was a large cloud of grey smoke.

“That didn’t look like a divisional command center to me.” Tike said a few seconds later over her armor speakers.

“They didn’t have any tracker drones either.” Freya added using her armor’s speakers as well.

“Yeah, looks like our work is not done.” Toast said looking off in the distance where the bus had been. Freya looked in the same direction and spotted a blackish grey column of smoke rising into the air.

“Okay people, we found one needle. Let's go find us another one.” Toast said turning back towards them.