"Watch out!" Thunder called out, tossing over a custom backpack packed with high explosives before leading his men in a charge down the left tunnel.
Chen Ge got to his feet, had Lightbulb grab the backpack, and headed into the tunnel diagonally opposite.
The tunnel was three meters high and three meters wide, its walls and ceiling shored up with steel frames and round timber logs. It was clearly dug out improvised after the Russo-Ukrainian war broke out.
Thirty meters ahead was a Y-shaped fork. Ukrainian soldiers were ambushing from both branches, and in no small numbers.
Chen Ge raised a hand to signal a halt, turning his head toward Manhole Cover. "Got any thermobaric grenades?"
"Yeah! Just one."
Manhole Cover pulled an RG-60TB from the grenade pouch on his belt and handed it to Chen Ge. Behind him, Big Bear pulled one out as well and poked Chen Ge in the back.
"Here, Hammer Brother!"
"Lightbulb, give me the pack. You guys pull out!"
Chen Ge took the grenades and told the four men to back out of the tunnel.
The four wasted no words. They dropped the pack and retreated, pulling back to both sides of the tunnel entrance, craning their necks to look inside.
Chen Ge pulled the grenade's safety pin, lined up his angle, and hurled it hard.
The grenade banked cleanly into the left fork. Right after, Chen Ge quickly tossed the second, banking it into the right fork, before hitting the dirt flat on his stomach.
Boom! Boom! Shockwaves engulfed in flames and smoke swept over. The tunnel shook violently twice, sand, gravel, and dirt raining down in clattering showers.
Chen Ge leapt up, sprinted to the fork with the pack in hand, grabbed a sheared-off log that had collapsed from the blast, wedged the pack against the wall with it, and pulled the fuse lighter.
"Fall back, move!"
Wheeling around, he sprinted out of the tunnel and shouted for Big Bear and the others to withdraw. Thunder and his men had also finished setting their charges and rushed into the main hall.
The group burst out of the passageway and scrambled up to the first floor. The ground shuddered several times. Fifty meters to the southwest of the building and sixty meters to the northeast, the earth heaved upward, then caved in.
Gunfire and explosions on the heights grew even fiercer. The Ukrainian forces seemed to have realized the Falcon Hunting Team's intent, charging like madmen in an attempt to retake the building.
But Ratibor was relentless; his artillery barrage hadn't let up for a second, a relentless rain of shells pounding into the Ukrainian outer defensive positions to the south and west.
Four assault detachments—eight hundred veterans plus eighteen hundred K-soldiers—were primed for the attack, ready to launch an all-out assault at any moment.
The Ukrainians were no pushovers either. Ukrainian troops on Hill 215.7 pounded the building with 120mm mortars.
Boom, boom, boom! Shells slammed into the structure, collapsing and flattening the fifth floor on top.
Having already cleared the enemy inside, Trench took cover from the bombardment and, stationed at a third-floor window, used a 1D15 backpack laser designator to guide the Big Goose Aerospace Forces' Su-34 Fullback fighter-bombers in precision strikes against Hill 215.7 and the water tower artillery observation post.
Chen Ge felt a twinge of dread. The Big Goose Aerospace Forces were notoriously unreliable; relying on the air force was far worse than relying on artillery. Their bomb dispersion was bad enough to make you wonder if the munitions had been dropped by the enemy.
The building was only three hundred meters from Hill 215.7! If they dropped off target... the scene would be too ugly to even imagine.
"Sledgehammer, reinforce the south wall!"
Trench's shout echoed over. Chen Ge shook his head to clear his thoughts and dashed toward the south wall with Big Bear and the others.
A rocket had blown a gaping hole through the south wall on the ground floor. Drill Bit of Assault Squad 4 and fourteen of his men were struggling to hold off the assault.
"Suka! Kill these sons-of-bitches bastards!"
Ukrainian curses poured through the breach. Chen Ge took cover behind a concrete pillar, raised his rifle, leaned out, and fired, picking off every head that poked into view.
Big Bear laid down suppressive fire, the barrel of his PKM glowing red-hot.
"Conserve your ammo! You think you've got endless rounds?"
"Two belt drums left!"
Big Bear shouted back between bursts. The belt drum on his weapon ran empty, so he quickly pulled a 100-round drum from his webbing pouch, slapped it on, and resumed firing.
Chen Ge swapped magazines, darted forward several meters, ducked behind a pillar just four meters from the breach in the south wall, and tossed an RGO grenade.
Boom! Of the three Ukrainian soldiers outside the hole, two were killed instantly. The third had his right lower leg blown off and lay on the ground screaming until two comrades quickly dragged him away.
"Rockets!"
The Ukrainian officer leading the assault yelled. His voice wasn't loud, and an ordinary person would never have heard it over the din.
Chen Ge heard it. Turning his head, he roared, "Drill Bit, grenades! Throw grenades, now!"
Across from him, Drill Bit blinked in surprise, then signaled his men to lob grenades through the hole.
Nine grenades went flying out. Two Ukrainian soldiers outside who had just hoisted an AT4 and an RPG were blown apart, and the troops around them took heavy casualties.
Seeing this, the officer's eyes turned savage. "Grenades—" he began to roar.
Before he could finish, another volley of grenades flew out, mixed with two smoke grenades.
Boom, boom, boom! The grenades detonated, and dense smoke spread rapidly. With their night-vision goggles blinded and lacking thermal optics, the Ukrainian officer made a split-second decision and ordered a temporary retreat.
A figure leapt out through the breach, hitting the ground and sprinting toward the retreating Ukrainians at blistering speed.
Bang, bang, bang! Gunfire cracked. The bullets seemed guided by sight. One Ukrainian soldier after another was struck, collapsing before they could even tell where the shooter was coming from.
Seeing this, the commanding officer turned on his heels and ran. He had barely made it a few meters when a 7.62 NATO round slammed into his back, punching right through his armor plate.
Thud. The officer collapsed, and the surviving Ukrainian soldiers scattered in flight.
Chen Ge didn't pursue. Instead, he called for Drill Bit, Big Bear, and the others to come out and scavenge ammunition.
Their ammo was nearly depleted; without replenishment, they would soon be locked in bloody, close-quarters hand-to-hand combat with bayonets.
Suddenly, his danger sense flared violently. Chen Ge whipped his head toward the northeast as a 152mm shell screamed in, striking the roof of the building.
Boom! What was left of the collapsed fifth floor was blown to pieces, and the fourth floor shook precariously, threatening to give way at any second.
Everyone scrambled back inside the building to keep from being crushed by falling chunks of concrete and flying masonry.
Drill Bit cursed, "Stupid Khrushchev buildings—I still prefer a Stalinka! A 152 shell can't crack one of those."
Chen Ge looked grim. After a moment's thought, he unclipped his tactical radio from his chest, switched the channel, and contacted Ratibor.
"Ratibor, this is Falcon! How copy?"
A few seconds later, Ratibor's steady voice came through.
"Is that you, Sledgehammer?"
"It's me. Ratibor, I saw an artillery deployment map in the Ukrainian command post earlier and memorized their battery coordinates. I'm transmitting the grid coordinates to you now. Please carry out precision strikes on them immediately, or we won't last much longer—the objective building is about to collapse."
Chen Ge had completely made it up, of course. He hadn't seen any Ukrainian artillery deployment map. But with his extraordinary hearing, he could pinpoint the exact positions of artillery batteries within a 3.5-kilometer radius, and by using his danger sense to track incoming shells' trajectories, he could calculate the general locations of the Ukrainian artillery positions further in the rear.
Ratibor didn't doubt him in the slightest. "Very good. Send me the coordinates!"
Chen Ge manually typed in the coordinates, inputting twelve in total. Among them were four mortar positions on the heights, the water tower coordinates, and the Hill 215.7 vantage point coordinates.
The transmission went through. Ratibor replied, "Coordinates confirmed. Artillery is covering the targets. Falcon, hold the line."
Chapter 18