The night sky toward the ammunition depot was blazing crimson. Black smoke billowed upward, wrapped around roiling fireballs, climbing hundreds of meters into the air before dispersing.
The secondary detonations continued unabated. Artillery shells went off one after another like popping corn, the dull thuds turning into sharp, brittle cracks as shrapnel tore through the air.
Chen Ge’s spider sense flared in urgent warning. He ducked instinctively, and a jagged chunk of metal whistled past, shaving inches above his head.
The Ukrainian soldier behind him wasn’t so fortunate. The shrapnel shredded the man’s cheek, shattering flesh and bone in a spray of red and white fluids. An eyeball even bounced off Chen Ge’s calf.
Boom! Boom! The rolling thunder of exploding munitions surged and crested. From time to time, a piercing screech sliced through the din as an antiaircraft missile cooked off, hurtling out from the fireball with a crooked trail of exhaust before plunging nose-first into the dirt and detonating.
The heights were plunged into total chaos. Ukrainian soldiers poured out from every direction. The panicked ones bolted toward the depot, the sensible ones ran the other way, and some simply stood frozen in place.
Officers shouted, but nobody listened—their own voices were trembling.
Some yelled that the Russians were attacking, others screamed to run, and men barked into radios that answered only with bursts of harsh static.
In the pandemonium, people even began trading blows. A burly man with a crooked helmet grabbed another soldier by the collar, roaring, "Where the hell are you running?" The other man struck back with a fist, and the two went sprawling, wrestling on the ground.
No one tried to pull them apart. Amidst the bedlam, everyone was running for their lives.
Three hundred meters in front of the southwest perimeter positions, in a patch of woodland, Trench watched the inferno engulfing Klishchiivka Heights. His breathing grew rapid, his eyes alight with fervor.
He did it. Chen Ge actually pulled it off!
The mercenaries of the Falcon Hunting Team, however, looked on in stunned bewilderment, craning their necks in disbelief.
An explosion of this magnitude—did the Ukrainian ammo depot just blow?
Who did it? A bunker-buster dropped by the Aerospace Forces?
Only Big Bear, crouched beside Rock with a mortar tube and shells strapped to his back, seemed to realize what had happened. Concern filled his eyes.
It had to be Hammer Brother with Night Cat, Manhole Cover, and Lightbulb. Were they still alive?
"Listen up!" Trench ordered. "Stick to the plan and blend into the Ukrainian lines! Shout that we’re under the brigade commander’s orders to fight the fire at the ammo depot! Tell them to clear the way! Charge up the heights!"
At Trench’s command, the Falcon Hunting Team moved out, closing in on the Ukrainian outer defenses according to plan.
The Ukrainian perimeter lines were in disarray, every head turned back toward the heights.
It was 5:10 AM, the darkest hour before dawn. That, combined with the catastrophic explosion at the depot, gave the Falcon Hunting Team the perfect opening to slip in.
Having successfully infiltrated the Ukrainian trenches, Rock cleared his throat and yelled in a frantic voice, "Brigade commander’s orders! Move to the ammo depot and fight the fire! Out of the way!"
The rest of the squad tapped into their inner actors, each shouting with more panicked urgency than the last, looking ready to leap out of their skin.
Seeing this, the Ukrainian soldiers hurriedly parted to let them pass. The Falcon Hunting Team cut through three defensive lines and reached a position just a hundred meters from the ammunition depot.
A Ukrainian officer spotted Trench and his men sprinting up from below and bellowed, "Quick, put out the fire!"
Trench hesitated for a fraction of a second, barked an affirmative, and actually led his men to start fighting the flames.
Huddled in the corner of nearby ruins, Chen Ge saw the whole thing and nearly burst out laughing. He shifted behind cover and checked in on Night Cat, Lightbulb, and Manhole Cover.
He had previously ordered the three of them to cut through the woods on the left—an angle that fell right into a blind spot of the Ukrainian thermal scanners—and slip into the defenses under cover of the depot explosion.
"Night Cat, this is Sledgehammer. Report your position!"
Several minutes ticked by. Just as Chen Ge was growing anxious, Night Cat finally replied, panting heavily, "We fell in with Ukrainian troops carrying wounded... just north of the school building..."
Suddenly, Chen Ge’s spider sense flared. Extreme danger!
He snapped his head toward the southern sky.
Rockets!
The 5th Grad Rocket Artillery Battery of Wagner’s First Assault Detachment fired a full salvo, dumping two hundred and forty 122mm rockets across the southern slope of the heights.
Chen Ge’s eyes went wide. It was his first time witnessing a true artillery saturation strike, a spectacle on a scale he had never seen during his half year in Syria.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Deafening blasts rocked the night sky. The barrage smothered nearly the entire southern defensive perimeter, turning the positions into a churning sea of fire.
The sheer visual violence was beyond words—a terrifying, awe-inspiring sight.
"Suka blyat! Russian ambush!"
A Ukrainian major was the first to react, shouting frantically, "Forget the fire! Get to your combat stations!"
The soldiers fighting the fire hurled their tools aside and bolted toward their respective defensive positions.
Trench led his men northeast. Chen Ge casually stepped out from the ruins and fell into formation alongside them. Hailstone, running beside him, stared as if looking at a supernatural being and muttered, "How did you pull that off?"
"Snuck in, planted the bombs, pulled back to a safe distance."
"..."
Hailstone choked on his words, sorely tempted to curse, but swallowed it down.
Before they had gone far, Night Cat, Manhole Cover, and Lightbulb linked up with the group. Their hands and uniforms were smeared with blood, clearly from hauling the wounded.
"Halt! What company are you with?"
Just as they reached the front entrance, poised to seize the building without a scratch, a Ukrainian lieutenant stopped them.
Trench’s nerve held steady. Without blinking, he answered, "93rd Brigade, 4th Mechanized Battalion! Orders to cover the command post’s retreat!"
The lieutenant’s pupils snapped shut. Whipping around, he bolted for the building and screamed toward the sandbag emplacements at the entrance, "Russians! They’re Russians!"
Trench was stunned. How on earth had the man seen through it?
Chen Ge had spotted the lieutenant’s shoulder patch right before Trench spoke, but he hadn't been able to stop him in time.
Raising his rifle, Chen Ge took the lieutenant's head off with a single shot. He muttered helplessly, "Trench, are you blind? His patch literally says 93rd Brigade, 4th Mechanized Battalion!"
Trench’s mouth twitched. He raised his weapon and opened fire.
Crack-crack-crack! Automatic fire erupted. The Falcon Hunting Team had the numbers and the edge in training; in the first exchange, they wiped out the twelve Ukrainian soldiers stationed behind the sandbags thirty meters ahead.
With the entrance cleared, Trench barked orders: "Switch markers! Fortress, secure the main entrance! Rock, Sledgehammer, take the rear! Thunder, blow the tunnels! Everyone else, clear the building!"
The assault was on. The men tore the yellow and blue tape from their arms and helmets, pulling out cans of tactical marking spray.
It was a dual-spectrum paint, visible as bright red to the naked eye and glowing stark white through night-vision optics. It was used to mark cleared rooms, minefield lanes, and friendly personnel.
Hiss, hiss, hiss. Once the markers were sprayed, Fortress split his fourteen men into three combat teams: one holding the main doors, while the second and third flanked the entrance, using the sandbag emplacements to suppress incoming Ukrainian forces.
Rock and Chen Ge stormed through the lobby, heading straight for the rear exit.
There weren't many Ukrainian soldiers inside—scarcely a dozen. Chen Ge spearheaded the charge, letting loose with his HK417. It felt as though recoil didn't exist; the stock seemed welded to his shoulder, the muzzle refusing to budge.
The Ukrainian body armor couldn't stop 7.62 NATO rounds. Every trigger pull dropped a man, not a single bullet wasted.
Big Bear was even more ruthless. Leveling a PKM fitted with a two-hundred-round belt box, he delivered controlled, precise bursts, chewing through four Ukrainian soldiers in a single sweep.
The lobby was cleared in seconds. Rock’s seventeen-man Assault Team One, combined with Chen Ge’s five-man fire support team, pushed all twenty-two men to the back entrance. Tossing three F-1 "lemon" grenades, they wiped out the eleven Ukrainian troops stationed there and fanned out into the sandbag emplacements flanking the exit, bringing their weapons to bear on the Ukrainian reinforcements rushing in.
"Big Bear, mortar!"
Chapter 16