CHAPTER 34
As our team neared the valley where Abbas Gar Base was positioned, the foliage began to become more dense. Unlike the rest of the battlefield, where everything was a sparse, barely vegetated wasteland of sorts, it began looking much more like a forest transplanted the mountainous Appalachians in the eastern United States. If I didn’t know better, this almost seemed out of place here, but I wouldn’t complain about the extra cover.
MIDDLETON TO TEAM CHAT: Hey guys, its getting close to me logging out my assistants saying, just over an hour. I’m supposed to be shifting to that night team tomorrow.
SLAMPA: Copy. We are getting close to the barrier according to Adam’s, so we will do a bit of scouting and then find a safe space. We really need to find a way to track time here, we’d be up shits creek if we didn’t have assistants.
I found myself thinking more about the system. It was obvious that we unlocked things in a functional manner; I couldn’t see an ammo tracker unless equipped with a weapon that used ammo, for example. It was strange to me, we all had holo screens, holo pads, holo phones we carried around to track time. I know some of the more affluent types used mechanical watches still, though they were incredibly rare and I’d never seen one myself; maybe we could find one here?
We passed through a dense patch of brush, and suddenly the ground ahead of us opened into a wide valley. It took my breath away it was quite beautiful. In the dead center of the valley was a base.
It was much smaller than I expected it to be, but then again I had only ever seen Lackland so didn’t have much to compare it to. The walls, made of what looked like bags of some sort topped with the occasional turret, stood just a few feet above average male height judging from what I could see, as there were either trainees or NPC’s hurrying around standing up defenses. It was maybe a 300 by 300 foot square, and looked like it had an entrance on the north and south side’s of the box. There were roads in and out of the entrances, and there were several hard barricades leading in, which I assumed was to deter enemies ramming into the gates. I could make out a few large structures, but they were otherwise nondescript; they were just beige boxes with doors.
WATSON TO TEAM CHAT: So… whats the plan?
SLAMPA: Well, there seems to be… a lot of people down there. I know 15 are trainees like us, but how many NPC’s are they given? This seems pretty lopsided.
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MIDDLETON: Well, think of it this way; when we start having 24 hour coverage, we can strike when they’re weakest. Plus, they have to wait for us to do things, so I imagine it can be quite boring.
SLAMPA: Thats true. Maybe we can catch them off guard, do some small strikes, whittle them down.
MILLER: I’m with Watson, whats the plan then?
Slampa signalled to the group to move back behind the brush, out of sight of the base. Adams took out his map, spreading it out in the middle of our group, as we studied it.
“The plan was to get here and scout out, but… its pretty open around the base. I feel like we can strike at the base from the hills to the east and west.” He poked his fingers at the hills on the map. “But, with these M-4’s and AK’s, I doubt we will do very much. Really wish we had taken that RPG Stone’s team found.”
Middleton nodded, speaking up. “Right, but if they found one, there has to be more, no? We know of at least one more cache near the base. Maybe the equipment this close to the enemy is better, and maybe if we take down a few recon teams we can find some good stuff.”
Slampa thought on this, and Adams piped in. “Plus, we could use some levels, and more skills. It might be better if the night teams scout closer and us day teams take out enemies we find?”
I shook my head, “How are the night teams going to see anything? Yesterday luckily it wasn’t pitch dark, and you guys did light a fire, but imagine this place around midnight.”
“Thats a valid point. Maybe we can find some sort of flashlights, or something else to help?” Miller spoke up for the first time.
“I think all of these are good ideas,” Slampa said. “So lets turn this into a workable plan. Middleton's out in about an hour, so how about Middleton and Adam’s come with me, and Miller goes with Watson. My group will go around south, and we will look for caches with Adam’s map out there. Watson, you guys go to the other known cache to the northwest of the base, on the other side. Lets try and get as much gear as we can, and we will meet back up here.”
Slampa tapped the map, on the eastern side of the valley about a half of mile inside the edge of the forest. “I’ll send a message to the other teams, let's group up here. We’ll make a small base of operations outside the barrier range. Our priority items; light sources, long ranged or heavy weaponry, and things to make traps with.”
Middleton perked up at that, “Traps?”
Slampa nodded, “I’ll explain the next part of the plan when we group up. Lets get moving so you can log out in the meet up point.”