Chapter 4

———————

"Our theater area is this twenty five mile radius of your pack territory" Alex said "this is where most of our fight will take place" he pointed to the screen where google map of the pack land was projected.

It was in the afternoon and one of the pack members house was commandeered as a command center, the dining table was being used as a discussion table where Nick and Jeff were seated with Adrian, Sebastian and Alex was presenting. A projector with projection screen was set up.

"Now the last five attacks have been consistent, they always attack from west and north as you have maximum exposure there and that have enough rocky terrain to provide them cover" he said drawing lines to the pack house on the map, showing the path of attack the rogues would take.

"Your south is protected by a natural barrier, a river. So you need to have two main areas to focus. The best place to meet this attack is here and here, as this is where the bulk of the attack comes from, they always attack in waves, the first wave is more of a recon and the second wave dose most of the damage, they also use a third wave for finishing touch" He had drawn circles overlapping the lines he drew earlier indicating the area where they would meet the rogues. He had gathered this information painstakingly all morning from Nick's pack and after surveying the land.

"Now, we do not see a change in their attack pattern in the last five attacks, they have numbers on their side and they assume they can win with brute force alone so they will be confident and will not change their attack pattern now, we expect a full-on attack and that, we can use to our advantage"

Everyone in the command center was listening with rapt attention.

"Now the area where we meet them I am calling them Kill zones, so we have two primary KZ' and both of them will be armed with landmines. We will let the first wave come through and on the second wave we activate the land mines, I will have snipers in both KZ's and have them spread throughout if a third wave comes in they should take them out"

"Snipers! Landmines! Are you demented?" Jeff shot up furious, this was their back up? Even Nick was lost.

"You seriously think you can stop a Werewolf with a bullet's and bombs, this is your brilliant idea?" Jeff asked outraged. These Roma wolves were certifiable.

Adrian interrupted "Look at this" he was holding a black cylindrical object in his hand "this is no ordinary land mine, this is specifically designed for wolves and trust me when I say this any wolf that steps on this is history" he snapped his finger smiling.

"And this" he pulled out a bullet from his pocket "is a special gift, from one of our subsidiary companies which also makes weapons for uncle Sam. This bullet explodes once it enters the body and there is silver nitrate in the contents that will prevent wounds from healing. Two of these babes will render the strongest wolf weak and injured, ripe for picking" he said as a matter of fact.

Nick and Jeff were horrified and fascinated, this was a fighting technique none of them were used to...it was always wolf against wolf, it was always might makes right that prevailed in the wolf world. that was the way it was, their whole society structure was based on that simple concept from Alphas. betas down to the omegas. But now these folks were changing the game.

"But this is...this is" Jeff stammered trying to put a coherent thought to this mad plan.

"Survival" Sebastian injected "Pure and simple survival, humans have created weapons that can wipe out our entire species and they would not hesitate to do so, if they ever find out about us. We have adapted their weapons, their tactics and their technology to protect ourselves. In simple words of Charles Darwin my friend, you adapt or you die."

It would take time for such an idea to sink in to these wolves, who were used to certain way of functioning for eons. They had stuck to their ways while the world around them quietly changed. Roma had been smart enough to adapt to that change. Because their enemies no longer carried pitchforks and torches, but automatic machine guns and grenades. For all their physical strength they would be shot down like fly's.

"We would appreciate if you don't discuss our plan outside this room, you take care of your pack and we will take care of the rogues" Sebastian interjected "We know you might not agree with our methods, but we will give you results. You want the rogues gone and that is exactly we are promising. Let us reconvene in the evening."

He paused and looked around "partially for you to wrap your head around this and partially for us to set up this command center. We can take it from there and have any questions you have answered"

Everyone dispersed post that.

What did I get my pack in to Nick wondered, but now it was too late to do anything.

***

By evening, the activity around the pack house was in full swing, the command center was fully set up overseen by Alex, there were computer monitors set up giving different view and Alex had an ear piece in to which he was barking orders in to.

"I want all the IR cams ready in the next 30 and I want you to do a status check on each one of them, I don't want an IT issue in the middle of a fight" he barked in to his earpiece.

He then saw a guy enter in to the command center "You done?" he asked and that guy nodded.

Alex turned to the laptop in front of him and furiously typed in to it and an image on one of the monitors changed showing a map with red dots "hello there beauties!" he whispered in to the screen, he again typed until he saw a status on the top right corner of the display say "online: unarmed"

"Super!" he exclaimed, clasping his hand in satisfaction.

"Mark" he barked in to his ear piece "get here!" a moment later a guy entered the command center

"You billowed, my lord!"

"Smartass" Alex muttered "I need taggers."

Mark groaned "Alex. It's a pain in the ass, not to mention I need people to kill wolfs"

"Why do you think I am giving it to you" Alex Smirked "Let's have two taggers each for wave one and three of the attack, wave two, my babies will take care."

"Babies? Do you know how disturbing that sounds?"

Alex just rolled his eyes "I need your best ones on tags."

But Mark was already shaking his head "No way...absolutely not...I am not putting my best marks men on tagging...they rather want killing....they need kills...they already have bets going."

"Listen" Alex interrupted "These rogues, they are smart, they keep moving their base around, and I have a feeling they don't have a central base, that means they have smaller units spread all across and to take them out I need you to tag them" Alex was now in serious mode and Mark was listening to him with rapt attention. When Alex spoke you listened, he was one of the most brilliant tactician and he had save their lives countless times.

"But why my best guys?"

"I need as many tags as possible, because I need to identify their hideouts and take them out simultaneously, if I just take one out, the others will be alerted. We need to go behind them with everything we got before they regroup."

Mark nodded in understanding "you got it boss" and turned to walk out.

"And Mark" Alex said taking something out of his pocket and handing it over to Mark "a hundred on Allen."

Mark smiled "you are on" and grabbed the one hundred dollar note.

An hour later Nick and Jeff was standing in what was once one of their pack member's house amazed. There were dozens of people in the room sitting in front of systems talking in to their ear pieces, there were few more folks on laptops sitting in huddles and furiously attacking the keyboards of their respective laptops. There were a few folks who were setting up a white board. The house looked more like a military nerve center and most of these folks were even wearing standard army camouflages.

A shrill whistle sounded and the room fell silent all looking at Alex.

"All right" Alex said "Now that I have your attention let's go through this one last time"

"Trips?"

"Trip circuits are online, our sensors should pick up any movement" one operator responded

"Visual?"

"All cameras are online and streaming, IR should pick up any heat signatures"

"Comms?"

"All comms are normal we are receiving chatter from all KZ's."

"IT?"

"We are go."

"Adrian?"

"We are all in position, little brother."

"Little?" Alex asked raising an eyebrow.

"Why else would I let you be safely tucked in the command center while I am freezing my ass off on top of a rock in the middle of a forest" Adrian responded.

"Because you got no brains?" Alex asked.

"Whatever makes you sleep at night little brother, whatever makes you sleep at night, you better cover our back, over and out" Adrian retorted.

Alex looked around and nodded satisfied and then saw the Alpha and Beta huddled in one corner looking lost, he walked over to them.

"You guys all set?"

Jeff nodded "All our folks are in the pack house and we have it heavily guarded."

"Good, good" Alex nodded his head "ideally the rogues should not be able to step anywhere near the pack house, but better safe than sorry."

"What's the plan?" Nick asked.

Alex them to a monitor and pointed to the map "See here? We put up some motion sensors, which will be our first warning, this is about 50 miles out from here near your pack border, they are meant to give us heads up and the data from the sensors can tell us the kind of attack we are expecting. It gives us reading on speed and help us estimate a rough number of attackers."

Nick and Jeff were watching with rapt attention.

"You will know all this from a sensor?" Jeff asked amazed, imagine you knowing the kind of attack you are expecting fifty miles out that would be extremely handy.

"It's actually a group of sensors but together they give us a very accurate picture, the transmit to the antenna out there" Alex said pointing to the antenna through the window that was set up on the pack house in the afternoon.

"Next we have wireless IR cams, installed on treetops that will give visual confirmation."

"IR cams?" Jeff asked.

"Infrared, they are best for werewolves because they detect heat signature, like body heat and since werewolf has the highest body temperature then anything out there...it will stand out like a beacon" he pointed to the forest on the screen.

"Once I have visual confirmation, I will know where the wolves are heading and I will be giving this information to Adrian from here" he said tapping his ear piece.

"The problem is half our force will be in human form, our snipers and taggers and the other half will be in Wolf form, now I for obvious reason will be in human form that means I cannot use the pack link. So, Adrian will be leading the wolf force and to communicate with him I need a wolf here to whom I can give instructions to and he can relay it same to Adrian. I will oversee the human force from here and can communicate directly using our radio comms" only an Alpha of the pack or a mate can communicate in human form with the pack or their mates.

"But wolf's have excellent hearing and eyesight" Jeff added in deep thought.

"I know what you are thinking, but we have equipment modified specifically, especially this earpiece that I have" he said tapping the earpiece "is noise cancelling, otherwise you would have clearly heard the conversation from other side, have you heard it?" he asked.

"I did not!" Jeff responded surprised that he did not notice this before.

"Next thing, if I put Snipers on the ground, they are dead before they even fire a couple of shots, because my enemy can smell them, detect the slightest movement and their eyes are excellent motion detectors. However if I have my snipers on trees then it's an entirely different matter altogether, isn't it?" Alex asked smirking.

It goddam was! Jeff thought nodding to Alex.

"One, you are a wolf you will never suspect looking in to the trees. Two, your smell is easily suppressed on a tree and on top of it my snipers will be sprayed with scent neutralize, even my wolves on ground as well, so smelling them out is difficult. Three, with fight going on, on the ground, my snipers can pick the enemies out at leisure, our sniping guns are specially designed to be quite, even with wolf hearing it will be hard to make out and finally a wolf cannot clime a tree" he said grinning.

"How will your snipers know, who is on our side and who is not?" In human form it would be impossible for you to differentiate wolves especially in the middle of a fight.

"My wolfs will be covered in a spray which will shine when you see it through an IR scope and all of my snipers and taggers will be wearing scopes"

"Taggers?"

"They essentially are snipers but they shoot different kind of bullets, these bullets don't kill but implant a tracking device in the body of the wolf"

"Why?"

"Because I want to know these motherfuckers base! We will deliberately not kill some of them and taggers will carefully shoot the wolves while they are busily fighting. A tag bullet will feel like a pin prick and they should not even feel it, in the middle of a fight and most of these wolves will be badly injured that they will not even notice this or the pain of a tag implant."

"Have you ever used them before" Jeff asked.

"Of course, they work like a charm."

Someone spoke to Alex on the ear piece and he broke off and went to an operator and started discussing. Jeff was clearly impressed, he had been standing next to Alex and even then he could not make out what the person on the other end was saying.

"Alright everyone!" Alex clapped his hands to get the attention of the folks in this room.

"I don't need to tell you what you need to do" He said, his voice clear and carrying across the room to every single person in it "but you need to know that what we do here, will save lives out there, I want one hundred percent focus on what you are doing as usual" he paused while no one moved in the room their attention focused on Alex "All right then, let's focus on our consoles and help our brothers out there, happy fragging."

Sebastian entered the command center again walked over to the Alpha and Beta, he had been over the phone for a while now and was finally done.

"Now what?" Nick asked Sebastian in clear anticipation.

"Now,we wait" Sebastian deadpanned.