Chapter 236: Like water, always like haze
Don’t fight an uncertain battle.
Stay mobile and fight, hit and run.
Make the enemy the primary weapons supplier.
Keep your whereabouts hidden.
Military operations must be unexpected.
New columns must be formed immediately after seizing some political power.
Generally speaking, the development of guerrilla warfare goes through three stages: strategic defense; the enemy's actions enter into a stalemate with the guerrillas' actions; and the final and complete elimination of the enemy.
——————Che Guevara, excerpted from "On Guerrilla Warfare"
Many people think that guerrilla warfare is impossible in a building complex and within a range of only a few kilometers, but a small enough team, an elite enough force and a firm will can overcome this point, coupled with the continuous cover of the Imperial Guard's internal camps and supplies, the situation faced by the Catachans was not as bad as people imagined.
For example, in the dark environment here, even the continuous Lumen Towers on the castle have many blind spots, and the underground is moist and dark, which provides them with a lot of convenience.
Of course, danger still accompanies them, and the radio is strictly controlled for safety and non-exposure. Catachan can only get a chance by walking like a ghost in this poor area.
Not far from the Space Marine camp, the thick reinforced concrete walls and firearms on the notorious traitor's temporary defense are intimidating. No matter the horrific decorations or mutated skeletons, the most deadly ones are still those who stand on the wall. A statuesque Space Marine.
Master Chief Catachan and his "water team" are lurking. He is holding a telescope and wearing a piece of broken iron picked up on the ground and a "geely suit" sewn from cloth on his back. Said Geely Cloak device keeps itself quiet enough.
Absolutely quiet, behind the pipes made for heat dissipation on the ground, they looked like a group of stable fragments, no different from the other "brothers and sisters" fragments that appeared due to the war.
"A group is only about 5 kilometers away. The density of Astartes is not that high. Most of them are mortal defense lines composed of cultists." Sergeant Catachan reported softly to the Letling kid beside him and emphasized.
"You don't need to follow us. We have no need for cooking and will be away from the camp area for a long time. The only way to contact the camp is regular supply distribution and flares. You can't hold on."
The Lytling boy simply replied. "I'm small and stealthy, and I'm proficient in drilling pipes. Secondly, my shooting skills are far better than yours, Master Chief. I understand that demi-humans like me are not popular, especially since Lytlin has a problem with touching the supplies of his comrades, but I am The Emperor swears that I must repay the Sun Lord."
"Let me help, my brother." He said to Catachan seriously.
The Master Chief was silent. He looked into the distance and said something completely different from the Lytling boy's question. "The wall is about three meters high, which is not too high, but there is a barbed wire fence on it. It is impossible to break through from the front. I think the melt grenade is good. It can melt the wall, but how to create a breakthrough?"
This is Catachan style dialogue, if a Catachan talks to you like this (asking for tactical advice) then congratulations, you have been accepted by the toughest tough guy in the universe.
The Letling boy hesitated for a moment, smiled again, and answered in his usual lively, friendly, and coquettish tone. "How about grenades? Use individual grenades and melta bombs to smash into the enemy's wall."
Sergeant Catachan shook his head. "No, for the yield issue, we need a thick melted anti-tank mine like a bouquet, but our best bombardier only has a range of tens of meters."
The boy Lytlin pondered for a moment. "That's still a sniper weapon. As long as the enemy's losses are too great to maintain a huge defense line, it is not difficult to pass through the weak points of manpower, but..." Before he could finish his words, Sergeant Catachan covered his small mouth, and there was a burst of laughter. In the silence, the Space Marines on the distant defense line were chatting with several Mechanicus traitors.
Chief Catachan couldn't hear their conversation, and he couldn't read verbal movements to guess the situation from this distance, but he still needed to be quiet to pay attention to the situation here to judge strategic goals.
In the blurry picture and the black and white high-contrast night vision effect of the telescope, the Mechanicus servitors handed black boxes to the Space Marines one by one. After checking, the servitors sent the treasures into the towering fixed machine gun sentry tower. .
"I bet those are explosive bombs. We need to figure out this supply line and cut those things off," the Master Chief said.
asked the Lytlin boy. "But we are in the encirclement, how can we hit the people outside?"
"The dam can easily resist the river but will not block the raindrops. We are small in number and can enter the periphery through pipelines. The pipelines here extend in all directions. It is not difficult to get out, but it is impossible for large troops to evacuate." Master Chief Catachan replied.
"Isn't that my strong point?" Kid Lytlin said.
Yes, there are many pipes in this place. For the giant buildings of the empire, those things are blood vessels and tracheas, which extend in all directions and are actually useful. However, this place seems to absorb heat from the center of the earth to generate electricity. In other words, if they find the wrong pipe, they It will be burned into coke by the underground heat.
This mission is very heavy and terrifying, and inexperienced people cannot tell the difference. Boy Letling should be the best candidate to lead the guerrillas out of the encirclement. Master Chief Catachan stood up when he saw the enemy reconnaissance team changing. Lead the troops to the vicinity very quickly and leave the area.
The Ratling boy pointed out a possible pipeline entrance nearby, which should be sufficiently concealed. The Catachans moved forward very quickly and quietly, and they soon came to the location pointed out by the Lytling, a cave that was downwards and hidden in a semi-protruding ground. Sewer pipes carry waste liquid outside.
The Letling boy stroked the blurry words on the mouth of the pipe. It looked like it was hundreds or thousands of years old? "It should be a gray water (recycled water) pipe. It is not corrosive or radioactive. It is a rare good thing."
"How did you tell the difference?" a Catachan recruit asked in a fuss. As a hive man, he was not sure that there was a pipe in this location. Even if there was, he couldn't understand whether the thing discharged was radioactive water.
"I can feel the history of a pipe when I touch it. Sir, I am different from people like you. I was born in it and spent most of my life there. I know all the common pipes in the empire." A rare thing for a Letling boy. Proud to say this loudly to elites like Catachan, this is normal in an environment where force is worshiped within the empire.
There are not many days when he can dominate in front of Catachan. No matter how difficult the next guerrilla war is, the Letling boy feels it is worth it at this moment, until he subconsciously turns on his personal energy bar, and he becomes Hungry and getting yelled at by the Master Chief. "Don't eat! We have one week until the next supply!"
The Letling boy touched his backpack, which contained about 15 kilograms of food and a carbine. Without a body armor, it was a full 40 kilograms, but a week?
His habitual habits of eating breakfast, brunch, lunch, lunch, dinner, afternoon tea, and dinner are completely different. Usually he can eat the entire backpack of food alone in one day. Although the individual soldier rations here are high-energy, The small stick in his hand has 400 calories, but for the boy Letling, not being able to eat is a pain!
He regretted it, he regretted it very much, but he just carefully put those things away. However, he did not retreat. Instead, as a soldier, he led his new compatriots who were not of his own blood. He was born in a pipeline and walked into this dark and gloomy place. It was like returning to his hometown, with the sound of military boots clicking on the ground constantly. He immediately took the lead and carved his own path through the intricate pipelines like a blind guide dog.
The pipeline is not for humans to walk through. It is winding and has strange bones. It goes up and down, which is very dangerous, but it is nothing to the boy Letling. Even if he does not have equipment, he can climb those through the hair on his fingers. No matter how smooth the wall of a pipe covered with moss is, he can still climb it like a climbing spider.
His exploration is very useful, and when he comes back he will bring a lot of rodents to fill the food gap of the troops, because Catachan is struggling in the pipeline, and those animals also alleviate the supply problem very well, although on the two-day journey The Letling boy still lost a lot of weight during the journey.
It’s hard to imagine that there is anything else in that small body besides a slightly bulging belly that can be related to gluttony, but the reality is that the food consumption of the Lytlin people is much greater than that of ordinary people. The good news is that when the Lytlin boy was on Panlan, Just because he endured hunger for a long time due to crowding and riots, lack of food did not make him lose his fighting ability.
And his strong will was indeed recognized by the Catachans. The forest warriors also proposed to give food to the Ratling boys, but the Ratling boys, who knew how important food was, all refused. It is hard to imagine that a thief could be used as a thief within the empire. A Ratling named Little Touch would do such a thing.
But the reality is that as a soulless person, his life has rarely been in contact with mainstream Letling society, and stealing is rare. He is not one of those notorious guys, but the emperor gave him such a birth, smelly, and Full of disgusting elements.
The method is destined, he is no different from those rodents in the pipeline, just like his birth, he is destined to be ostracized and hated by others. But Cady is different, the Sun Lord is different, and the war is different. The empire will unconditionally love those who sacrificed at this moment People, the Emperor will protect those who fight for the Empire on the battlefield, even if they are born lowly.
This is the thought of most soldiers of the Empire. It was the Imperial Guard that gave them the opportunity to change, from waste in the hive to independent veterans, to express their value to the Emperor, to prove their existence to the Empire, and to express all their resentments and gifts. come out.
When the Letling boys pass through every bend in the pipe, they will use a knife to carve marks on the metal pipe that can only be distinguished by touch to record the road. Therefore, they can avoid many places and continue to trial and error in the maze-like pipe. He can still pass The touch while carving discerns the nature of the pipe.
Therefore, he promised that when he returned, the Imperial Guard would be able to cross here in less than one-tenth of the time it takes now. Of course, it was also a problem that only he could understand this mark.
And when the last ray of light of the long journey shone in front of them, it was a pity that it was not the warm and comfortable sunshine but the disgusting light of the Lumen Tower. The lack of ultraviolet light made people uncomfortable, even though most people in the hive city were uncomfortable with it. This feeling is common.
He didn't go into the wrong pipe, and the two-day march paid off at this moment. There is no doubt that Kid Letling is a hero and a miracle, but people usually don't cheer for him, but today, his head sticking out of the pipe was hit by a The strong arms held it down, and the magnetic voice spoke. "Well done, brother."
That was Catachan's voice, that was Catachan's recognition. Three years later, this team once again accepted outsiders, but compared to the despair back then, the situation was much better.
And when the Catachans leave the inside of the pipeline, this is the rear of the battle line, and it is also the free world that the Skadi people currently dream of. However, their power cannot break through the enemy's siege and return to the ground to transmit intelligence. They can only methodically work in this shabby place. Studying the situation in an underground cave that looks like a metal garbage dump.
They quickly found a road that had been cleared by humans. It was wide enough to pass the Emperor's Baneblade. The tires on it told them that many things, such as transport vehicles, had passed here.
"This is it." The Master Chief judged the time by crawling like a hound. "It's been about more than a day. No cars have passed by here in a day, but there are traces left the day before yesterday or the day before yesterday."
"Is that the Mechanicus' convoy?" asked the Letling boy.
"Absolutely, even if it's not, it's for transporting food or something." After the Master Chief said, the boy Letling's stomach made a growling sound. The boy immediately shrank his head for fear of being scolded, but the Master Chief looked at this skinny guy and sighed. tone.
"Go to the pipe to make a smokeless fire with promethium and iron barrels, and prepare food for us." Then he took out his own supplies, canned meat, starch, canned beans, salt, sugar, etc.
"With the food here, my physique is like carrying 20 kilograms more than you." The Master Chief took out the emergency food and reserves. This was not rational, but he rarely softened his heart. Secondly, the Letling boy was the secret to their return. , or to replenish physical energy and maintain morale, cooking and rest are also crucial.
But everyone understood that he was looking for excuses. This man who had never cared about others for so long showed his weak feelings towards his brothers and compatriots for the first time. In the end, they turned into words with only lame excuses. And the facts proved that this world There is no Superman.
No matter how powerful or powerful you are, as long as your spirit and will are still human, you can't help but feel emotional about something and care about things around you, and the entire universe is not just about war.
As the flames rose from the pipes, the Letling boy wiped away the liquid on the pipes and made the place dry and comfortable. He used iron sheets as frying pans, iron buckets as pots, beans to make thick soup, and cans and starch to make steaks.
Catachan and Lytlin, two groups of people who have never been harmonious, shook hands in Skadi's homeland. At this moment, the ratman and the ape were sitting in the metal cave and sharing food.
Damn it, I forgot to change the title (I typed it casually)
This chapter should be called Apes and Rats
(End of chapter)