and you have to put yourself out into the open to come to where they are. You do, however, have the initiative.
We dash from house to house, using the cover of store awnings and doorways to mask our approach to the intersection. On my tactical display, I can see the other team making their way up the alley to our right.
We reach the intersection without any contact. I scan the top floor of the building across the intersection for movement, but the defending squad has it together. I know they have at least a fireteam in that building--it’s a natural chokepoint, and we can’t go around it without exposing ourselves--but they are playing a good game of hide-and-seek.
I toggle the squad channel.
“Fire team Bravo, in position. Ready when you are.”
“Go on three,” Ricci says, and I pull a smoke grenade from the harness on the front of my battle armor.
“Wait for smoke,” I say, but Ricci is already counting down.
“One...two...”
I let out a curse, pop the safety cap of the smoke grenade, and hurl it into the intersection.
“...three!”
On my tactical display, I can see that Ricci’s entire fire team has left cover. Then I hear the rasping of their rifles as they fire automatic bursts from the hip while running.
“Dumb fuck,” I say, and give my team the signal to rush. The smoke grenade goes off with a muffled “pop”, and there’s an instant cloud of thick, chemical smoke over our side of the intersection.
“Go, go, go!”
We rush into the smoke, towards the building. It’s only about fifty yards away, but that’s an incredibly long distance when you know there are people with rifles and grenade launchers trying to keep you from reaching the finish line.
The training rifles emit no muzzle flashes, but I can hear the staccato of automatic fire coming from the building, on both sides of our advance. It looks like Halley has most of her squad in that building in anticipation of our dumb leader’s third attempt at an offense. The tactical computers score individual kills, and so far, our squad has chalked up a big, fat zero.
Over to our right, where Ricci’s team is rushing across the intersection, I can hear cursing as the first recruits are hit by the virtual projectiles from the guns of Halley’s squad. I rush through the cloud of artificial fog, listening to the chatter of at least two rifles from the part of the building in front of me, and my stomach turns in anticipation of that little electric jolt that signals a hit. When a recruit gets nailed by a virtual round, the tactical computer will assess the location of the hit, and disable things based on the severity of the simulated injury. If you take a lethal hit, the computer turns off your comlink and tactical interface, so you won’t be able to communicate or share data with the rest of your squad. It also turns off your rifle, so you can’t cheat and fire back while you’re dead.
Luckily, the defenders facing my fire team are merely firing blindly into the smoke, hoping to score hits by accident. My team makes it through the smoke and across the intersection.
When we’re all lined up on the side wall of the building, I check my tactical display for Ricci’s half of the squad. Their symbols are blinking red, meaning there’s no status information coming from their transmitters. I toggle the squad channel again, but I already know it’s pointless.
“Squad leader, Bravo. You guys across?”
There’s no response on the squad channel--they’ve all been mowed down by Halley’s defending teams, and their computers have turned off their network links.
“Well, looks like we’re on our own on this one,” I tell my team members.
“Beats the hell out of being dead again,” one of them says, and the others nod in agreement.
“Game’s not over yet,” I say.
There’s a doorway on the side of the building. I signal my team to take up positions on either side. Halley has her shit together, so I don’t want to just rush the team into the building. I take a grenade out of the harness on the front of my battle armor, and pop the safety cap off with my thumb.
“Ready?” I ask, and get three nods in response.
I activate the timer of the grenade by slapping the fuse button against the hard shell of my breastplate.
“Frag out!”
I toss the grenade into the doorway, aiming for the wall beyond the doorframe for a deflection shot into the