We Come from Hell

Chen Ge could pinpoint positions by sound alone, and with his immense strength, his grenade arced through the air and landed dead center among the pursuing Ukrainian soldiers. Terrified, the Ukrainian troops scattered, shrieking in panic, "*Ёбаный в рот, граната!*" *Fuck! Grenade!* *Boom! Boom!* The explosions reverberated through the corridor, the shockwaves rattling Chen Ge's eardrums. He poked his head out for a quick look, raised his machine gun, and fired single shots, running the weapon like a semi-automatic, picking them off one round at a time. The Mk48 fired from an open bolt and lacked a semi-automatic disconnector. With a cyclic rate of 730 rounds per minute, its cycle was not extraordinarily fast, yet even the fastest human trigger finger could not reset before the bolt cycled back—a normal pull invariably sent out at least two rounds. Chen Ge, however, was firing single rounds purely to conserve ammunition. Trigger speed? It was no exaggeration to say that no one on earth possessed his finger speed and trigger control. He could release the trigger precisely before the bolt engaged in a second cycle. If he wanted a single shot, he got a single shot, never spilling an extra bullet. After five of their men dropped dead, the Ukrainian soldiers decided they had had enough of fair play, and their squad leader called for an RPG gunner. "Fire! Take out that Russian son of a bitch!" Chen Ge turned on his heel and sprinted up the slope, tucking himself into the blind corner right beside the tunnel entrance, then glanced outside. Thick smoke choked the air. Heavy gunfire erupted from the third floor of the laboratory building, but Piano and the other six had already safely made it onto the ground floor. *Boom! Boom!* The rockets slammed into the passage, sending a blast wave laced with soot rushing up toward him. Chen Ge slipped his right hand off the machine gun grip, reached into his grenade pouch, and plucked out two DM51A2s. Listening to the oncoming footsteps, he brought his hands together, hooking his index fingers through the pull rings of the safety pins. This was his favorite stance—it felt badass. *Click!* The pins pulled free. He let his fingers loosen, sending the spoons flying, and wisps of pale smoke curled up. Two seconds later, he hurled the grenades down the slope. "*Blyat*, grenade! Get the fuck down!" It was *blyat*, the omnipresent Russian curse heard constantly across the battlefield, meaning fuck, shit, or dammit. *Boom! Boom!* The airbursts tore through the corridor, mowing down seven or eight Ukrainian soldiers. Chen Ge spun around and bolted back toward the laboratory building as the surviving Ukrainians retreated into the tunnel. It was not that he did not want to hold the tunnel. Rather, the captured volunteer radio he carried had just crackled with orders from a Ukrainian commander directing a mortar battery to shell grid coordinate 347. According to the intelligence Lin Xiyue had gathered, grid 347 was the exact coordinate the Ukrainian artillery had pre-registered for the laboratory building! Sure enough, the moment he dashed inside, 120mm mortar rounds began raining down. The damaged roof of the annex collapsed under the barrage, and several shells slammed directly into the laboratory building, drawing furious curses from the Ukrainian troops on the third floor. Leaning against the rear entrance, Chen Ge calculated the mortar battery's location from the shells' incoming trajectories: three and a half kilometers to the southwest. He pulled his personal tactical radio from its pouch, entered the coordinates, and transmitted them to the Second Assault Group's artillery battery. Stowing the radio, he strode quickly into the main hall where he had hung from the ceiling earlier and eliminated the eight foreign volunteers. Piano and a few others were sitting against the wall, bandaging their wounds. Chen Ge crouched before Rock and examined the bloody, mangled wound on the right side of his abdomen, his brow knitting tightly. It was a 7.62 NATO round. It had punched through the ballistic plate without exiting. The man had lost a tremendous amount of blood and had slipped into shock; he needed surgery at a field hospital immediately. Chen Ge turned to Piano, who was applying a tourniquet to Night Hawk. "The tunnel is blown. We'll clear and hold the building. You guys get Rock, Big Bear, and Night Hawk evacuated to the rear." He then pressed his PTT to contact Hacksaw. "Hacksaw, what's your status? How many guys are still standing?" "Not great," came the ragged reply. "Only eight of us can still move. Jark and Earthball are critically wounded. Wild Boar is dead. Lightbulb took over to keep the hostiles on the third floor pinned down." Chen Ge's eyes darkened. Even though he had braced himself mentally, he had still underestimated the sheer brutality of urban warfare. First Company had started the assault with fifty-one men. How many were left now? Eighteen! "Hacksaw, move the badly wounded brothers to the stairwell. I'll have Piano's group pull you guys out." "Understood!" Hacksaw did not try to play the hero or insist on staying to die together. Leaving critically wounded men behind served no purpose other than burdening the squad. Pulling back to a field hospital was the only sensible choice to keep them alive. Chen Ge rose to his feet. Just as he was about to give Piano a few more instructions, a deep voice crackled over his earpiece. "Peregrine First Company, Peregrine First Company. This is Octopus, Detachment 9, Second Assault Group. Countersign: Potato. We are arriving at the laboratory building now!" Reinforcements had finally arrived, even if they were late. Chen Ge checked his watch. Exactly forty minutes. He keyed his radio. "Octopus, this is Sledgehammer, Peregrine First Company. Get to the ground-floor hall on the double." "Copy that!" Three minutes later, a sharp-eyed, middle-aged man of medium build vaulted through a window on the right side of the laboratory building, followed by twenty-eight mercenaries. Wasting no time on pleasantries, Chen Ge pointed to Rock, Night Hawk, the newly carried-down Hacksaw, Jark, Earthball, and Big Bear, who had passed out again. "Octopus, the tunnel is collapsed, and there aren't many Ukrainians left in the building. Have your men help us evacuate our wounded!" Octopus pushed up his tactical goggles, eyeing Chen Ge with a puzzled look from head to toe. "You're Chinese?" Chen Ge nodded. "Yeah. Problem?" "None. Just surprised!" Octopus turned to a tall mercenary beside him. "Gray Rat, take Team Two and help First Company evacuate their casualties." Gray Rat glanced at Chen Ge, then directed ten mercenaries to assist Piano's men in moving the wounded out. Gunfire and explosions still rattled violently upstairs. Chen Ge had no time to lose and prepared to move up. "Octopus, leave half your men to secure the ground floor. The rest come with me." *** Third floor. Lightbulb, Manhole Cover, and Night Cat, along with five other mercenaries, held the room directly across from the stairwell landing. Kyrylo Budanov, commander of the 3rd Company, 5th Battalion, 58th Brigade, was directing his remaining seventeen soldiers in a desperate bid to wipe out Lightbulb's squad and break out. With the tunnel collapsed and their comrades on the lower two floors dead, failing to break out meant certain annihilation. Lightbulb had already read Budanov's intentions. Instead of pushing, he held the stairwell landing and waited for backup. Night Cat thrust his rifle out and fired a burst, shouting, "Surrender! We treat prisoners well!" A Ukrainian soldier roared back, "*Пошёл на хуй, Орки!*" *Fuck off, you Orcs!* 'Orc' was the Ukrainian military's favored slur for Russian troops. Night Cat curled his lip but did not bother shouting back. If they did not surrender, they died; wasting breath on dead men was a waste of energy. *Crash!* The sound of falling masonry echoed as Chen Ge grabbed the exposed rebar from the collapsed stairs and swung himself nimbly onto the third floor. "Holy shit!" The instant he found his footing, a Ukrainian soldier leaped out from behind the door of the second room along the south corridor, an RPG perched on his shoulder. *Whoosh!* The rocket streaked out. Chen Ge leaned back, the warhead whistling past a mere thirty centimeters from his face before slamming into the window frame at the far end of the north corridor and exploding. "Hey pal, ever thought about aiming?" Chen Ge taunted, bending his knees and diving into the room across the hall. Furious and red-faced with embarrassment, the Ukrainian soldier discarded the spent launcher, raised a PKM, and opened fire in a sweeping spray. Chen Ge pressed his back against the wall, taking care not to expose himself to the Ukrainian positions in the batch plant across the courtyard, who might hammer them with RPGs or recoilless rifles. He glanced over the battered, soot-stained faces of Lightbulb and the others. As they looked back at him, the atmosphere grew strangely heavy. Chen Ge adjusted the sling of his machine gun, gripped the handle tight, and blurted out something completely on impulse. "Brothers, we come from hell. We are Hell's Sharpshooters!"