Commando, p.1
Commando, page 1
COMMANDO
©2021 TROY OSGOOD
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ALSO IN SERIES
BATTLEGROUNDS ONLINE
RIFLEMAN
COMMANDO
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Thank You!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Groups
LitRPG
Chapter One
The hovercraft sped over the water, bouncing on the waves. It was big, so most of the swells didn’t bother the boat, but I was still getting a little queasy inside the hold. There were only three of us inside a space that could easily fit a dozen. It was dark, no lights.
Not inside or outside of the hovercraft.
It was called a Turtle. Heavily armored—even the balloon or whatever it was that kept the thing floating a couple inches above the water was armored too. Or so I’d been told. The hold was built into the balloon, steps leading up to the top where the slanted roof that doubled as a ramp would open up. At the end was a small door that led to the engine room and a ladder to the two-person cockpit. Mounted behind and slightly above the cockpit was a rotating weapon. Two barrels a couple feet long, three or so inches in diameter.
Is engine room the right word for it? In any case, the Turtle was powered by two huge fans mounted on the back above the balloon, with directional fins to help steer. The cockpit was closed tonight, but Squall had said it could be opened.
The Turtle looked impressive in Helen’s berth.
The Helen herself was an impressive ship, but finding out there was a dry dock within the boat had really blown my mind. Inside that space, the Turtle had rested on supports held in the air, with gangways leading to it. A catwalk ran along the top of the Helen’s interior dock, with metal stairs leading to the gangways. Two fast attack boats, called Swordfishes, hung from the sides of the dry dock. They were about a dozen feet long, not that wide. A thin nose that flared out to the rear. It sat low on the water, skimming across the surface, powered by two outboard motors. There were clips for two torpedoes to be mounted in notches along the underside, which was the visible side. A gray underbelly and dark green top. Squall said they were open cockpit, with missiles on either side and a machine gun on the front. Fast, agile, and deadly. But couldn’t survive a hit.
“You’ll want to watch this,” Seaspray told me as soon as we got on board. Air Raid and Leopard had apparently already seen it.
So I stayed in the open cockpit with him.
About a dozen holes appeared along the hull, louvers opening. Water started flooding the space. I stood just outside the cockpit on a diamond plate walking path along the top of the balloon, leaning out to look past the black rubber like material. The water was filling the space, rising quickly. There was a loud noise like a lock disengaging, and I saw a sliver of sunlight just ahead. A wide section of the front of the Helen was opening, two pieces sliding apart, the ocean rushing in.
With the water from the holes and the ocean, the dry dock filled quickly. I felt the Turtle start to float as the water rose above the supports.
“Get below,” Seaspray said as he closed the outside door, a very small door, into what looked to be a cramped cockpit.
Steadying myself on the brackets as the Turtle rolled with the motion of the ocean, I walked over to the lower section in front of the raised cockpit. Two single barrel gun turrets were mounted on either side of the hatch to the hold below.
That was about an hour ago. The Helen’s lights had been dimmed, becoming a distance dot on the horizon. Now it was completely dark. Seaspray was navigating by instruments.
There hadn’t been much conversation between the three of us, each focused on the mission ahead. I was nervous about it. Even after logging off, getting a good run in—something new for me—and logging back in just in time for mission launch, I hadn’t managed to calm down.
Anxiety was spiking.
I’d been playing Battlegrounds Online for a couple weeks and was just now starting my first non-tutorial Operation, what quests were called in this game. I had my Primary Operational Specialty, Commando, and this mission was going to put me to work.
Leaning against the bulkhead of the Turtle, I pulled up the Operation.
Operation Bunker Infiltration
Mission Objectives:
1. Infiltrate and secure the Punta Del Muerta bunker
Rewards:
1. 30 Operation Points
2. $4,000 Mission Pay + $4,000 Hazardous Duty Pay
Not much to it. Which was how the Operations went in this game. Most of the required information, the background and setup at least, was given during a briefing, two briefings in this particular case, by a senior officer of the Knights, the direct action part of the Tactical Operations Group. I was a Knight. Or more accurately, my character Zag was a Knight.
The objective may have sounded simple, but it was anything but.
Just the three of us had to infiltrate this bunker on the Rio Lindu River. It was about ten miles upriver from the ocean and forty miles shy of Punta Del Muerta’s capital city of Rio Lindu. It occupied a good location. Anything going upriver had to pass by the bunker, and the way it was situated, it had a good field of fire downriver.
Field of fire? How did I even know what that was?
Our job was to take control of the bunker before the Knight’s assault team got there. We had about two days to make our way through the jungle and infiltrate the bunker.
Easy.
Sure.
But we didn’t know what the bunker was like inside or even how many Wyverns were there.
The whole reason the Knights were in Punta Del Muerta was because Wyvern, a terrorist organization, was helping stage a coup and taking control of the country. We couldn’t allow that. Most of the Knights had been down here in the country for a couple of days already. I’d been laid up and confined to quarters with an injury. When this Operation came up, a Knight with my specialty was required so I’d been given clearance to go. By the time I’d arrived at Forward Operating Base Delta, my injury was healed.
Mostly.
Unlike most virtual reality full immersion games, where injuries completely healed, this one was more realistic. It had healed a lot quicker than in the real world, but there was still some lingering soreness in my leg. I’d messed it up pretty bad. Doc Greer back at Fort Hama had said I’d be good, with no long-term damage, and I believed him, but it still felt a little off.
Dismissing the Operation notification, I stretched out. There was enough space between the benches that ran along the sides of the bulkhead that I didn’t touch it. Padding was on the wall, but it wasn’t th at comfortable. The Turtle was made to take a ton of hits and keep moving, getting the team to the Operation site.
It was amphibious, could go on land, but wouldn’t be for this trip.
“First time in a Turtle?” Air Raid asked.
Her name was really Private Stall, hadn’t been given a first name, and she was one of the game’s NPCs. But unlike most games, these NPCs were as good as real. There weren’t that many Players in Battlegrounds Online. Each server could only support one hundred, and I’d been told there were only about two dozen Players on this server. Only five of them were Knights.
Apparently playing as a bad guy or mercenary was more fun.
We were on mission, so I figured I should refer and call my teammates by their call signs.
“Yeah,” I answered her. “Only been a Knight a couple of weeks.”
“Oh yeah, the new guy.”
She smiled at me, showing that she didn’t mean it badly. My first Operation, I’d been called the FNG by a big guy with the call sign Kodiak. He’d meant it badly.
“I haven’t been back to Fort Hama in about a month, month and a half,” Air Raid continued. “I’m a JTAC; I rarely spend any time on base.”
She saw my confusion at the term.
“Joint Terminal Attack Controller. It means I’m out front most of the time, directing traffic.”
I still wasn’t sure what she was getting at.
This game was weird. At times it seemed to feed me required information, making it feel like I already knew the skill or jargon or whatever, and other times it didn’t. Something else to look up on the forums, which were not very helpful most of the time.
“It means she scouts ahead and lets us know where to go or which target to bomb,” Leopard offered.
It was pretty dark in the hold; I could barely make out each of their shadows. Leopard, a couple seats down on my right, and Air Raid, across the hold and two seats to the left.
“Like recon?” I asked, thinking of Lowdown, the mission leader on my second operation.
“Somewhat. JTAC is part of the Knight’s recon group, but where someone like Lowdown looks to gather intel, I look to see how we can be inserted.”
I still wasn’t quite getting it, but the explanation was good enough.
“I was sorry to hear about Steel,” she continued.
My last operation, one of the Knights had been killed. Steel. He’d been mission leader and, from what I’d gathered, had been well respected by all the Knights. Cable, one of the NPCs I’d first met, had told me that Steel was First Sergeant of the Knights, meaning he was the last man between the rank-and-file and officers.
I’d played plenty of games where NPCs died, and none had affected me like Steel’s death. It hadn’t felt like an NPC death. It had felt real.
This game was unique.
We fell silent again, each lost in their thoughts.
I must have fallen asleep, or the game’s AI had put me to sleep to speed up travel, because Seaspray’s voice woke me.
“Ten minutes to target.”
It came through speakers mounted in the ceiling.
A red light came on, a bar running along the hold where wall met ceiling. Not bright but enough that we could see. Air Raid and Leopard started double-checking their gear, making sure their weapons worked, so I did the same.
I’d gotten my first upgrade before going on this Operation, replacing my starter weapon with a new one. I’d upgraded the SIG TAW to an F06R. I hadn’t even gotten any range time with the new gun. Which wasn’t ideal. Yet another difference between this game and others—I needed to be pretty familiar with a weapon to use it the best. The basics were the same. Point and shoot. This rifle was a little longer, to help me be more effective as a sniper, but it weighed less. Holding it was different too.
Nothing like trial by fire, though.
Everything looked good. Same with my sidearm. The knife was in its sheath.
I pulled my green baseball hat on and set my DARPA SPEC OPS GOGGLES 10.3 into place. I toggled through the different vision moods, making sure each worked. Especially night vision. Everything turned from a red tint to black and green. Hitting a button on the side, the goggles connected to my OpsComm, a wrist-mounted device that was my communications with Fort Hama. It kept track of my game statistics as well.
In my black and green vision, I saw a bunch of information. I cycled through it all to get what I wanted, which was a small map and my ammunition count. In prior operations, I’d had my Health and Fatigue shown as well, but I’d learned that I didn’t really need them.
One wound could take you completely out of the fight.
The goggles were synced, so I pulled them off my head.
They looked like a pair of hi-tech glasses. With all the bells and whistles, I couldn’t imagine how much the things cost. I hadn’t come across anything where the TOGs would make me pay back damages, but I wasn’t going to risk it, either.
My HUD was much simpler looking but still had all the same bells. It was a simple lens that set over my eye, attached to a frame that hung off my ear. I made sure that synced with my OpsComm. Chances were, I’d be wearing the goggles, but it was nice to have just the HUD too.
It hadn’t happened to me, yet, but I’d been told that having a backup connected to the OpsComm was a priority. If one got damaged, I could still access the device and all the information it had available. There was a screen on the OpsComm, but it was only a couple inches long and an inch high. Not that visible and definitely not efficient to retrieve any info during a firefight.
The main gear checked, I moved on to everything else.
“One minute to landing,” Seaspray said.
We stood up, aligning our backpacks over our shoulders, reaching for the bar bolted to the top. I let my F06R hang from its sling, across my chest.
I couldn’t see anything. No windows in the hold.
“Ten seconds.”
“Five.”
“Brace.”
I wondered what Seaspray meant, but I still set my legs, holding tighter.
And then I found out why he’d said it.
The Turtle hit something.
Hard.
It shook, the front lifting up. There was a change in pitch from the engines. Before, there had been the steady drone of propellers, but now there was more of a groan, like they were working harder. The floor shook and I thought I heard a scraping noise.
“We’ve landed,” Air Raid calmly said.
“Deploying ramp,” said Seaspray. “Good luck.”
There was the noise of something unlocking, something heavy, followed by motors. Part of the ceiling started moving. Stars peered in through the crack.
More stars and the night sky became visible.
The ceiling-ramp moves pretty fast. There was a loud crash, and the front of the Turtle was completely open.
“Go,” Air Raid ordered.
Chapter Two
I ran up the stairs, following the other two.
At the top, I could see the night sky above us and what looked to be a dark line of trees a couple dozen feet ahead.
The ramp was flat across the longer front of the balloon, hinged to fold down to the ground. Our booted feet scuffed against the metal, but the noise couldn’t be helped. I glanced over my shoulder at the cockpit but couldn’t see Seaspray within. The angle was steep so I slowed, not wanting to fall.
My feet stepped off the ramp and onto sandy beach.
I’d gotten about five feet away before I heard the motors pull the ramp back up.
