Fractured Desert: (A LitFPS book) (Call of Reality Book 2) Read online

  Watts sat down next to him as the rest of the squad moved out and joined the rest of the force.

  “Well that wasn’t fun,” Roland said screwing the cap back on his empty canteen.

  “I’m not going to disagree there. Unfortunately, we can’t sit around for too long.”

  “Why not?” Roland said attempting to stand.

  “The Lieutenant needs to know about the map and I’m sure the captain of the armoured troops will want to be kept in the loop too.”

  “Let’s lay down some more cover fire then. The sooner this is over the sooner we can talk to them.” Watts picked up her rifle and reloaded it.

  “I’m behind on kills so I’m not going to complain about that.”

  Roland grinned as they went back to their positions. They spent the next half an hour disrupting enemies defending barricades until the shots finally stopped. Watts had closed the gap in kills now that Bywaters had cleaned up her hand. When they finished firing, they used their scope to search for the officers. They found them coming towards the HQ building they were on so headed back downstairs. The walls and doors of the building had been torn apart during the battle but the structure was still solid enough. They pulled up seats and waited for the officers to arrive.

  They didn’t have to wait long for them to come into the HQ. Roland and Watts stood as they entered saluting. The officers returned the salute, and the lieutenant took off his helmet.

  “What did you find?”

  “A projector in there,” Roland said pointing towards the room behind him. “The officer was sat at a table and he had a hard light projector. It got hit in the crossfire but we managed to get a look at the screen before it died.”

  “What was on it?” the captain said peering into the room that Roland had pointed to.

  “It was a map with troop dispositions. There was only one we didn’t know about.”

  “Where were they deployed?” The lieutenant asked.

  “Out in the desert area to the west of here.”

  “We don’t have any troops out there though,” the captain said returning to stand next to the lieutenant.

  “They weren’t fighting us. At least two companies of troops according to the key and they were fighting someone else. We came across the same thing up on the mesa.”

  “You made contact with these ‘others’?”

  “Yes and no,” Watts began. “They were shrouded. High level stealth tech. They saved our arses up on the mesa as well as taking out a squad last night as we were on our approach.”

  The officers looked at each other. Something unspoken passed between them. The lieutenant crossed to the doorway and spoke to someone outside before pulling the door closed. Well, as closed as it would go, anyway.

  “Take a seat you two,” the captain said dragging a chair over for himself. The lieutenant carried on standing.

  “I don’t have the full details and quite frankly I don’t have the clearance to learn more than I already have. But, there is something odd going on out here in this battle. They think it is linked to the glitch.”

  “Someone is messing with the system?” Watts asked as she propped her rifle up and fished around in her bag for a bottle of water.

  “Yes, in short. Essentially, we think there may be a rebel group that has managed to break into the AI systems in several countries. They are putting units in and messing around with the respawn features. The two may be connected due to some science stuff I really don’t understand. For you two that means you can’t talk about what you saw. This is now classified.”

  “Fine by me,” Roland replied.

  He wanted a command position; but for now he wanted to concentrate on building up his points to buy better equipment and ranks. Not to mention tidy up his skills and find a way of increasing more of them. The stealth skill had been invaluable so far.

  “That isn’t the end of it though. You are our best bet to track down these rebels. You know where they are. I am officially creating an extra unit for my battalion. You are now seconded to our unit and will act as forward scouts. I will split the rest of your unit up and fold them into ours for the rest of this battle, and likely officially after this. I need to contact HQ and see what our new orders are in light of these events. Further to that point, we will be staying put for the rest of today at the very least.”

  [Unit designation temporarily changed. Access log files to review.]

  Roland dismissed the notification. It didn’t matter what unit he was in at the moment.

  The captain stood after he had finished speaking and left the building. The lieutenant remained behind and waited for a few seconds before approaching them.

  “I have done work like this before. Squads become useless at this level so we will split you all into teams. To make it easier, your team will be the original members of your squad. Find them and bring them here for a briefing. Also, resupply. A unit will be set up soon.” he didn’t wait for a reply before he also walked out. Roland and Watts shared a look.

  “Well this isn’t exactly the simple soldiering life is it?” Watts said.

  “No. I wonder if it comes with promotions though?” Roland replied standing and picking up his rifle.

  Watts rolled her eyes at him. “You and your promotions.”

  They left the building and went in search of the rest of the squad.

  The squad had taken up a position in one of the bunkers that formed the outside of the village. They had lost two of the new guys and Lawry had a bandage over his left eye.

  “Have a nice holiday?” Clark asked as they walked into the bunker.

  “Yeah pretty good. Nice sandy beach but we couldn’t find the sea,” Watts replied.

  Murden chuckled at them before coming forward. “Any news on our new orders?”

  “Yeah, sort of sarge. We have to go to the old HQ building. Only the old squad though. The rest of the new guys need to stay here. The captain and lieutenant want to brief us.”

  Murden nodded and turned to the squad.

  “We have our orders gather up and move out people.”

  Chapter 9.

  By the time the squad had returned to the HQ building, the resupply point had been set up. It was one of the small ones. Not that it made any difference to Roland at the moment. They settled down inside the former HQ building and took turns to resupply.

  Roland looked through the menus when it came to his turn. Apart from some ammunition, their supplies were limited to basic replacements. He resupplied the ammo and then trawled through the other resources. There was a menu for theatre specific equipment where Roland found a sand shield for his face and the higher level water resupply. He upped the amount listed in his rations with some of his back up points. After thinking for a moment he looked up the stims and combed through the list to see if he had access to some that increased his stamina. He found them but they were greyed out. They came up in the medic section and you needed to be tier three in your field medic skill to have access. He closed down the screens and then went to find Bywaters.

  She sat on one of the remaining chairs changing Lawry’s bandage. Lawry’s wound was red raw but not particularly deep. His eye was also swollen to an inordinate size. Roland approached as she finished up.

  “I’ve got a favour to ask,” he said.

  “Sure what is it?”

  “Would you be able to get me any stamina stims? We will need them if we go into the desert again.”

  “Why would we be going into the desert?” she asked giving him a quizzical look.

  “Well, we might and I don’t want to be caught short again.”

  “Is there something you aren’t saying?” she asked. Roland thought fast. He couldn’t say why without getting court martialled. Until the briefing, there was no way of him knowing if they everyone would be told about the rebels and where they are. They should have time after the briefing he realised. They were staying here for the night from what the officers had said.

  “Never mind.
Thought they may come in handy at some point.” Roland backed away as Bywaters stared at him. He walked over to the crates and climbed on to the roof. Watts had been calibrating her scope while everyone else relaxed downstairs.

  “I looked for those stims,” he said walking over and sitting down next to her.

  “Yeah? Any luck?”

  “They are tier three medic kit. I asked Bywaters, and she got really suspicious. We will have to wait until after the briefing and hope that the captain gives us a reason.”

  “We could not run around like idiots as well.”

  Roland chuckled. “Yeah true. Still, they would be nice to have as a backup.”

  “Talking of backups did you get any grenades?”

  “Crap I knew I had forgotten something. I’ll grab some later.”

  “Get smoke grenades while you are at it. It’ll give us cover in the open desert.”

  “Why would you need that? And why are you two talking about the desert so much?”

  Roland jumped as Bywaters spoke. She made no sound as she came out onto the roof. Either she had been working on her stealth skill or he wasn’t paying attention. He hoped it was the former.

  “No reason,” Roland replied.

  “Come on. You two know something. What is it?”

  “We know that the desert is hot, and it almost killed us when we were ambushed. We are trying to think ahead as we may have to retreat at some point.” Watts said packing up her rifle.

  “Oh, and Roland scope covers might be needed too. I also grabbed an anti-glare screen for the front of the scope. It knocks a little off of the scope’s range but seems to work well.”

  Roland made a mental note and then added the items to the list of equipment in his menu he wanted to buy. He needed to use the features in the menus more often. Especially if he was going to forget basic things like buying grenades.

  “I don’t buy it,” Bywaters said putting her hands on her hips.

  “Well, you will have to as that is the reason,” Watts said and pushed past her to exit the roof. Bywaters turned and watched her descend before rounding on Roland and arching an eyebrow. Roland shrugged and followed Watts. The others were all checking their equipment over. The officers hadn’t arrived so Roland used the time to grab the list of items he had saved. They cost more points than he really wanted to spend but if they helped him get more kills, then they would be worth it. As he was pulling up a chair, the officers arrived. Roland stopped and turned throwing a salute. The others did the same, but the captain waved their arms down.

  “Take seats people.”

  The scraping of chairs on the floor and the dropping of kitbags filled the room for a few moments. The lieutenant took the time to set up the hard light screen projector he had bought up on the wall they were all facing. It flickered into life casting a cold blue light across the room. Only a single screen appeared this time though.

  The captain moved to stand in front of the screen as the lieutenant joined the rest of them. He chose to sit on a crate rather than one of the flimsy chairs which made sense while he was still in his armour.

  “Okay. We did well taking this village. The objective is now to secure the area. I have set teams around the perimeter. It looks like we are in the clear for a while now. I contacted command to see if we would be advancing to support the paras. They seem to be holding their own for now so we are making this our forward base. With that out of the way, sources at command discussed something else with me that is relevant to you all. The rest of what I say is classified. You are not to talk to anyone outside this room about this unless I give you explicit permission.”

  There were murmurs around the room. Watts and Roland stayed silent staring directly forward. Roland caught Bywaters looking at him out of the corner of her eye. The captain moved to the side of the screen and pressed a button. The screen crackled and then a map appeared that looked much the same as the one they had seen when they were waiting to be called in. this one was subtly different though. The objectives were no longer marked and the unit designations were gone.

  “As you all know we are here.” The captain pointed to their position in the map’s centre. “You also know all of our units are currently concentrated around the objectives on the map. You can see where they are just by looking at where our units are. Now, this is the interesting bit.” He reached over and pressed another button. An overlay flashed onto the screen. It showed the enemy positions in a garish red. The captain pointed at one of the enemy groups. “This one is what is giving command issues.”

  There was more murmuring. Bywaters had leant forward and her eyes went wide. She glanced at Roland again. This time he turned and gave her a wink. She must have worked it out by now he thought.

  “This group is engaged with an unknown enemy. Several of our units have come into contact with this enemy. Intelligence has analysed the left flanks advance and come to the conclusion that it is this mysterious enemy that stopped it in its tracks for a while. What we are going to be doing is advancing on this position. We need to find out who these rebels are that are attacking both sides. This is a capture and gather intel mission.”

  The captain waited as the others took a long look at the screen. The map was real time the unknown units moved forward as the smaller dots of the enemy in the desert blinked out.

  “Lance corporal Mellors can you describe your encounter with them please.”

  They all turned to him and his jaw dropped. He hadn’t realised he would be asked. He looked at Watts for moral support and she nodded her head towards the front. Roland stood and approached the front of the room.

  “The enemy are all but invisible. They use flash suppressors too. They saved Watts and me in the last battle. However, we can’t bank on that again. They are accurate and their equipment is at least tier three for weaponry and armour. I suspect it is a lot higher, more like tier five or above. Apart from that, they seem to work by ambush.” Roland looked at the captain when he finished and the captain nodded to him to sit down. Roland hastily sat back in his seat again. He had never been one for public speaking even in front of a small group of friends like this.

  “So what we know is they are advanced and we can’t see them. I put in a request with procurement over at command for some extra points for the squad. We will issue every soldier with infrared goggles. Hopefully, their stealth tech is just on vision. With the desert heat, they should stand out enough. The trick will be capturing them and not killing them. To that end, we also have stun guns that have been placed on the basic equipment list for you to purchase, for free. These are way higher tier than your unit has access to normally so don’t get used to having them. The equipment will be available at the resupply unit and I wish you good luck. That is all.”

  The captain turned off the hard light projector and signalled the lieutenant to take over as he left.

  Talking broke out among the squad and got louder. Roland stayed quiet. There was nothing more for him to say.

  The lieutenant spoke over the hubbub. “We have our orders. I won’t be coming with you but the rest of the platoon will be on standby to give you support from further out. I am relying on your stealth to do this so make us proud.”

  He followed the captain out of the room. Murden was up as soon as he left.

  “Quiet everyone. Now!” she shouted. “This is messed up but we have orders. Get equipped for the desert people. We move out before the sun rises to get some distance under our belts before the heat becomes an issue. Lock in all of your stealth skills where they are now. I don’t care if you were saving points. This is far more important.”

  Roland checked his skills and discovered he had hit the threshold for tier four. He locked in the stat and waited as the tier four stealth filled up to the level five mark. He pulled in more points and it filled up again. By the end, he had reached 25% on tier five stealth. He kicked himself for not locking it in before. He had probably missed out on tier six. Either way tier five was better than his sh
ooting so that was something skill level.

  They took it in turns to pick up their kit. Roland and Watts had both been issued infrared upgrades to their scopes in addition to the goggles. He wished he had the levels to buy that quality already but was sure that it wouldn’t be too long until he could.

  Bywaters approached them as they were experimenting with the scope settings. She coughed lightly. They turned to look at her.

  “Sorry for pushing earlier. I get it now. Here, a peace offering.” She handed both of them a small pouch. Roland pulled back the drawstring tops and saw a small selection of tablets in the bag.

  “They are the stims you were after. Don’t take more than one in a cool-down period. If you do, you will enter a fatigue state when it wears off.”

  “Thanks, Bywaters,” Roland said as he stashed the small bag in one of his pouches.

  “Yeah same,” Watts said before going back to her rifle.

  “I hope you have a bunch set by for yourself and the others.”

  “Oh don’t worry I have more meds than a backstreet pharmacy at the moment,” she chuckled slapping Roland on the arm.

  Roland watched her walk away and hoped she was referring to the amount in her pack and not her bloodstream.

  Chapter 10.

  They had all found places in the old HQ building to bed down in overnight. The new members of the squad had been moved in with them after their briefing was finished. They were set to guard duty and were standing watch at the door and on the roof as the team slept. They had been under orders to sleep and sort themselves out as much as possible. Lawry was ordered to give in and let Bywaters use her machine on his face. Roland didn’t know why he had refused before. He understood in combat due to the cooldown times but out of combat; it seemed a little pointless. Perhaps he was trying to cultivate better scars. There was barely a line left after Bywaters finished fixing his face. Roland set his alarm for dawn again and bedded down.