Chapter 2078 Rat in the Hole (Part 2)
“Damn, damn, damn—”
Losing a weapon on the battlefield felt like being suddenly naked, and Hayes began to look among the bodies that had fallen nearby. Crawling around frantically looking for weapons, he ran into a traitor who had fallen injured and then got up. The other person was also lying on the ground. They stood face to face for a second.
It should be a man, with a face covered in dirt and only a pair of bloodshot eyes.
Then the opponent rushed over and grabbed Hayes' neck with both hands. The two rolled and fell to the ground, but Hayes found an opportunity to stab his fingers into the opponent's injured chest, twisting the wet flesh inside hard, forcing the opponent to Letting go in severe pain, he then pressed himself against the man. The fingers of his other hand brushed against a hard object on the ground beside him, and he grabbed it.
As he lifted the object and slammed it into the man's face, Hayes was vaguely aware that he was holding the helmet of a fallen comrade, but he no longer cared.
In a frenzy of self-preservation, he raised his helmet and smashed it into the man's face again and again until the helmet was slippery with black blood.
Then, finally realizing that the man had stopped moving a long time ago and his face had turned into a ragged mush, Hayes stopped to take a breath.
Suddenly, Hayes, who had barely taken a few breaths, heard a creepy war cry from the darkness. Before he could grab his gun, he saw a dozen thugs rushing towards him.
For a moment he almost turned around, not knowing whether to run away or to defend himself with a gun.
"Forward!"
At the critical moment, he heard a shout, a shotgun roared behind him, and the face of the nearest enemy disappeared in a bloody explosion.
"Listen to my command! Move forward and fire intensively!"
In surprise, Hayes saw their battalion commander striding past him, leading the soldiers to attack the enemy. Fighting back, Winter came over and helped him up.
"Brother Hayes, you scare me to death. No one knows where you are, and there is no response to the communication."
Upon hearing this, Hayes patted his helmet angrily.
“That piece of shit has been broken for I don’t know how long. The battalion commander keeps saying it will be replenished, but he still hasn’t replenished it for me yet!”
“You’re so embarrassed!”
Haschet slapped Hayes on the back of the head from behind.
“Tell you to follow closely.”
"I was in urgent need of urination."
The support troops brought by Oranios were all commandos specially customized according to the mine environment. In view of the enemy's backward weapons, they all wore similar legal uniforms. Wearing thick explosion-proof suits with full armor, some people also carried explosion-proof shields. They moved forward at a slow pace, using shotguns, lumber guns and flamethrowers to shoot at the enemy's hiding position. Every step forward caused terrible damage to the enemy. of harm.
Just as the ambushers died screaming, Hayes stared at their battalion commander. For some reason, he felt that this man was like a long-dead saint who had returned to human form and was fighting with him. They walked side by side.
The Captain seems to be immortal and unkillable, like the legendary hero told by the priest.
A legend, leading his people to victory.
"Forward!" Under his command, the counterattack gained momentum, and all the living people gathered in the mine tunnel moved forward beside him.
"Keep firing! Forward, forward!"
With the help of the flamethrower, the enemies who tried to use the narrow terrain to shoot black guns were also driven out, so they Turn around and start running away.
Soon escaped into darkness.
This is the most difficult thing about them. If they can't be beaten, they can always run away, and the soldiers dare not pursue them because they will deploy many traps, trip mines, large pits full of sharp metal fragments, and hanging holes above the mine tunnels. Falling rocks.
There was a person in Hayes' class who fell into a pit and suffered several holes in his body. Although he did not die on the spot, news of his death came shortly after he was sent to the rear field hospital.
And these people often escape through small passages with a height of less than one meter, which is what the imperial soldiers hate the most. They call it the rat passage, because most of the time they cannot enter at all while wearing armor. Go to those holes, and if the armor is taken off, all it takes is a sharp iron rod to kill them.
So Ouranios ordered to stop the attack, everyone stopped shooting, and there was a brief silence on the battlefield.
Soon, new sounds broke the silence, the wails of the wounded, and the nervous laughter and disbelieving oaths of others when they discovered they were still alive.
Hearing these sounds, Hayes' nervousness suddenly disappeared and he realized that he had survived.
He stood next to the body of the dead enemy. For some reason, he suddenly looked down at the tattered face of the thing. He suddenly felt sick and felt like he was going to vomit. He originally thought that he should have learned about death and death. The corpse felt used to it.
Immediately afterwards, he saw a black shadow appear beside him, and Habri came to his side. The big man's right upper arm seemed to be injured, and it was dripping blood, and his face was tightly wrinkled. .
"The wounded will return to the starting point first, and the second company will continue to advance. We need to occupy an air purification station within an hour, that is a key location."
Olanios said, He turned to look in the direction of Hayes.
"Hayes, your squad will be responsible for bringing the wounded back to the starting point."
"Copy that!"
After that, Hayes and his comrades began to help the wounded, and those with minor injuries were simply bandaged. After a while, the seriously injured ones went to find temporary stretchers, and everyone tried to walk back.
The field hospital was set up in the rail transit station they occupied. It was originally a place where mine cars coming from all directions were dispatched. It was also a rare and spacious area underground. However, because of this, there were many passages around it. , some large and some small, so that when they were resting here, enemies kept coming out to harass them. It was not until they set up tarantula turrets and sirens at almost every possible entrance and exit that the place was considered safe.< br>
When Hayes and the others trudged back to the starting point, people from other companies in the regiment also returned one after another. Outside the field hospital, the bodies of those who had died in the past 10 hours were lined up in a row, because Corpse transporters only come every 10 hours.
Those who died had no boots on their feet and had their protective gear stripped off. Some had their faces covered with shrouds, while the rest were left naked in the biting cold with the features of death: all People are like logs ready to be burned.
Or maybe all of their lives are just like insignificant firewood, Hayes thought as he watched, those people he had known before, crossed unimaginable distances in the void, for something they knew nothing about. Fighting for a target, it turned out to be nothing more than a temporary landmark in an unforgiving and war-torn landscape.
For what?
Probably, as the pastor said?
For, the Emperor?
To Hayes, this seemed to be the most meaningless of the many horrors he had witnessed in this dark underground, and a lesson in utter futility.
(End of this chapter)