On Paper
Myself and three of my online friends drop into a co-op mission in the VR military simulator, Onward. It’s an Evacuation mission, we must survive for a few minutes while we wait for a helicopter to rescue us from endless enemy squads. The chopper will land in a random location. We enter a map called Turbine and spawn behind a parking lot which is next to a small office building for those who operate a large dam which also acts as a bridge. Just past the parking lot and to our right, lies the dam. The top of the dam is a road covered in concrete barriers, trucks and other military vehicles. Across the dam are industrial buildings and another small gravel parking lot.
Not sure where the rescue chopper will land, we plan to take our position on the bridge. This will mean the four of us only have two sides to defend and will mean the maximum distance we will be from the chopper will only be about a hundred meters. A great plan, on paper. With stealth not being much of an option, myself and one of my allies wielding light machine guns, while the other two are using assault rifles.
We make our way to the parking lot with two people watching the front and the other two watching behind us. Our footsteps pitter-patter quietly with guns raised, ready for anything. Suddenly a burst of gunfire comes from behind us. We drop our heads below the height of the cars to reduce our visibility. We take positions behind the cars and begin to hold different angles. With strong cohesion we fire back at the enemy, trusting one another to do their job in order to keep the squad safe. We’re surrounded. Bullets ricochet off the cars as the subtle sound of bullet casings trickling on the concrete. The pressure is on when a squadmate is badly injured. He drops to the ground as he cries in pain.
“I need help! I’m behind the red car,” he shouts. The red car is at the edge of the parking lot. With one teammate watching in front of us and the other watching our flank, I took it upon myself to rescue my fallen comrade. Staying crouched I slowly approach him with my weapon sights up. The enemy that hit him was flanking around the red car. I quickly stand up and put a couple of shots into his head which was peeking over the hood of the car. Grabbing a syringe from my vest, I inject my comrade with the syringe and he is quickly brought to his feet.
“We’re clear!” yells one of my teammates as the gunfire comes to a halt. We stand up and keep our eyes peeled.
“Alright, before they swarm us again, let’s get to the bridge!” I command, taking the lead. With great haste, we make our way to the bridge and begin moving to its center. Bullets fly over our heads and once again we are found keeping our heads low, taking cover behind whatever we can. Only two options, press on, or retreat.
“Just a little further, stick to the plan, we got this!” I say as I take a stand and unload my machine gun on anything that moves.
“I’ll watch behind us!” yells one of my squadmates. He puts his back up against a vehicle on the road and sets his sights on enemies that may come from behind us. With me shooting everything that moves I am beginning to run out of ammo in my big drum magazine. My other two teammates move up behind a different vehicle on the road, roughly halfway across the dam.
“Okay, let’s move up with the others,” I tell my ally who’s watching our back. He stands up and moves around the vehicle he was up against and attempts to move up. I cover him and my teammates seem to be struggling to keep the enemy at bay. The four of us are now in position as planned, but things are looking grim. I check the count down on my watch, indicating when the rescue chopper should arrive and we still have 40 seconds. Trying to reach a better position, one of our teammates gets injured and is left lying in the open next to a car on the road. Next, we are beginning to get overrun from behind as well. There are no good choices left. I throw a smoke grenade in front of us in hopes of hiding our movement. Next, I made a dash for our downed ally. Staying low next to my injured comrade, I trust the cloud of my smoke not to betray me. I unload the last of my ammo. The moment was ill-timed as a couple of hostiles step through the smoke. Faster than I ever have before I rip the empty drum magazine from my weapon, throw in a new fresh one, cock back the bolt, loading my first shot into the chamber, all in about a second. I return to blasting countless rounds downrange, killing the two hostiles and spraying rounds through the smoke for safe measure. Finally, with a moment to breathe, I pull out my last syringe and revive my injured teammate.
“Quick get behind cover!” I demand as he scurries behind a concrete barrier up against the side of the road. I return to my position behind the vehicle only to find my two other teammates also bleeding to death on the street. Luckily one is still mostly behind the same vehicle as me. I move to revive him, but hostiles have grown close to our rear flank. Bullets whiz by my head as I exchanged fire with them, removing the souls from two more enemies. A few more enemies in the distance are making my world a darker place as the open fire in my direction. I’m out of syringes so I take a moment to scavenge my wounded ally to take his syringe to revive him. A bullet takes me by surprise as it wings me in the leg, wounding me slightly and reducing my ability to sprint. My teammate shoots back at them but now the smoke is beginning to fade, revealing several enemies close by. Hoping my teammates cover me, I move up to my last injured ally. Sights up and firing the last of my machine gun drum magazine into those threatening our rear. I find his syringe and revive him as well. I tell him to get back behind something as I pull out my pistol and kill one of the nearby enemies. I get back into cover when we see the helicopter coming to our rescue.
“Looks like it’s going to land behind us!” yells one of my comrades, “throw smokes!” and he stands up to throw a smoke grenade when a bullet nails him in the face.
“I’ll see if I can revive him, you two get going!” I command the rest of my squad. They try to move to the edge of the bridge but are met by several enemies. I make my way to my fallen comrade but he is dead and can not be revived. I load my last drum magazine into my machine gun and peak over the vehicle we’ve been using for cover and begin to shred through ammo on anything that moved in order to make sure my other squadmates were safe. They tried to push forward but they were both shot and were once again, bleeding to death. Praying my rear was safe, I move up to their bodies and find one last syringe. I revive my ally and tell him to keep his head down. We’re now pinned down behind a small concrete barrier. Keeping our heads down, we lift our guns over the barrier and spray rounds in a desperate attempt to save ourselves. No luck though when his hand gets hit again, but this time he was dead for good. I’m left alone amongst the bodies of my fallen comrades. Bullets just graze over my helmet as I come face to face with the fact that my leadership got us all killed. A grenade topples just out of arm’s length and I accept my fate. What can I say? It seemed like such a great plan, on paper.
