Ten minutes ago, Mira of the pro-Russian hacker group KillNet received another email from the mysterious hacker. This time the hacker had even attached a codename: Selene.
Selene? The moon goddess?
Having read the email Selene sent, Mira found it contained the positions of the Ukrainian military's HIMARS rocket launchers secretly deployed around Bakhmut, along with word that they were about to bombard the Asphalt Plant's Laboratory Building in the Bakhmut Eastern Industrial District.
Since she'd used the method Selene had just taught her to wipe out the Ukrainian military's drone unit in the Bakhmut Eastern Industrial District, Mira was now convinced that Selene was truly an ally. She immediately forwarded the intelligence to the Russian General Staff's Main Intelligence Directorate, the GRU, and to Wagner.
When the Cook received the report, he took it very seriously. He personally contacted the Russian military's supreme commander, Surovikin, demanding that the rockets be intercepted with S-300V4 systems and the Ukrainian HIMARS be destroyed with Tornado-S guided rockets.
Surovikin at once ordered an S-300V4 air-defense battalion deployed ten kilometers from the industrial district to enter combat readiness, its radar powered up and on alert.
But what was the S-300V4 really worth? It simply couldn't stop HIMARS.
Firing from a hundred kilometers out, a HIMARS rocket needed only three and a half minutes to reach the Bakhmut Eastern Industrial District.
During the first forty kilometers of its climb, the Russian radar couldn't see it at all, because the curve of the Earth blocked the view.
By the time the radar caught the rocket, the air-defense system had less than thirty seconds to react.
In those brief thirty seconds, the Russian air-defense battalion had to complete a whole tedious sequence of interceptor-launch procedures.
Confirm the target, assign the interceptor, ignite the missile, fly it to the intercept point.
Even if you knew exactly where the rocket was headed, this physical process simply couldn't be squeezed into thirty seconds.
And on top of that, a HIMARS rocket's terminal velocity could reach Mach 2.5, and in the final five kilometers it could make small, random diving course corrections.
To catch it, the interceptor would have to withstand more than 30 G of overload. And what was the maximum overload of the interceptors currently in Russian service?
20 G!!!
It physically couldn't turn that hard, and could only watch helplessly as the rockets came down.
So the Russian air-defense battalion knew it couldn't stop the HIMARS rockets. It fired a few interceptors as a token gesture, and only notified the Wagner Second Assault Group's commander, Crimea, forty-five seconds before impact.
Furious, Crimea cursed a blue streak and immediately radioed Trench.
Horrified by the news, Trench flew into a rage, so angry his lungs were about to burst, and told Chen Ge to run.
"Suka—everyone, get out of the building at top speed!!!"
Chen Ge let out a roar, snatched up his machine gun, and bolted for the back door. The others reacted fast, springing up to follow Chen Ge out the back and heading straight for the deep crater Rock and his men had blasted out of the tunnel earlier.
The K-soldiers were far slower than the veterans. By the time Chen Ge and the veterans reached the edge of the crater, the K-soldiers were only halfway out, several of them tripping and falling, howling as the men behind trampled over them.
At that same moment, above Bakhmut, eight GMLRS guided rockets came slamming toward the Laboratory Building at Mach 2.5.
With delayed-action fuses, the rockets punched through the third-floor slab and bored into the second floor. The ninety kilograms of high explosive packed inside released destructive power equivalent to eight 155-millimeter shells, generating an instant overpressure many tens of times greater than atmospheric pressure, and the solid load-bearing walls burst apart with a roar.
Boom!!! The deafening blast echoed across most of Bakhmut's urban area.
Even more terrifying, all eight HIMARS rockets struck the Laboratory Building one after another. In an instant they collapsed the second and third floors; flames, smoke, and dust churned, and an irregular black-gray mushroom cloud rose into the sky.
Blast-tossed walls and floor slabs came crashing down. The slower K-soldiers suffered heavy casualties, and several mercenaries from Detachment 9 and the barrier detachment were killed as well.
Boom—the shockwave, like a wall of air, slammed hard into Chen Ge and his group, who hadn't all jumped into the crater yet.
Coyote, Tombstone, Octopus, Igor, and the others bringing up the rear were lifted off their feet and hurled into the pit.
"Agh! Pfft!"
Coyote's chest landed squarely on a rock. A spine-chilling crack of breaking bone rang out, he spewed a mouthful of blood, and lay sprawled over the stone without moving.
Octopus, Igor, and the others fared better—someone broke their fall and served as a cushion, so they were only hurt by the shock, in pain and unable to catch their breath.
Igor curled up into a ball and groaned in agony: "Blyat... it hurts... hurts so much... I... I can't breathe..."
No one paid him any mind; they were too busy keeping watch. If the Ukrainian troops inside the tunnel entrance seized the chance to charge out, a single round of grenades could wipe them all out.
Chen Ge stared at the Laboratory Building—its third and second floors blown apart, its first floor teetering on the verge of collapse—his heart leaping into his throat, his scalp tingling again and again.
He'd underestimated it. He had still underestimated the terrifying lethality of the HIMARS rockets, and overestimated the Stalin-era building.
Mm... he had to admit it: apart from a fortress reinforced and thickened with high-grade concrete and thick rebar, probably no building could withstand consecutive hits from HIMARS rockets.
This Russia-Ukraine battlefield was truly fucking terrifying. Even he, a mutated spider spirit, couldn't guarantee his own survival—so one could well imagine how high the casualty rate was for ordinary people.
"Coyote!"
Bull crawled over and reached out to feel Coyote's carotid artery. He couldn't feel a pulse. Trembling, he pulled his hand back and sighed helplessly.
Archer patted his shoulder, offering no comfort. After all, on the meat-grinder battlefield of Bakhmut, death was all too common. If not every second, then certainly every minute someone died—the place swallowed at least a thousand lives a day, and they had grown used to it.
"Sledgehammer, Sledgehammer, come in!"
"Lightbulb, Manhole Cover, Night Cat, Viper... Suka! Are you all dead? Say something!"
Over their headsets came Trench's irritable, frantic calls. Chen Ge, who was lying at the edge of the crater watching the annex tunnel entrance, pulled his head back, wiped his mud-covered hand on Viper, and, pressing the PTT, replied: "Not dead yet—though who knows in a while. The K-soldiers of the 7th Assault Company have about forty casualties. The veterans, roughly... hang on, let me count!"
Chen Ge turned his head and swept his gaze around, then went on: "Eight dead among the veterans and the barrier detachment. What I really want to know is—since you knew the Ukrainian military was going to precisely strike the Laboratory Building with rockets, why didn't you warn us to evacuate sooner?"
"Good, as long as you're not dead. About that..."
Trench gave him a rough account of the whole story. From what he'd heard from Crimea, it was the civilian pro-Russian hacker group KillNet that had simultaneously warned both the GRU and Wagner's intelligence department that the Ukrainian military would strike the Asphalt Plant's Laboratory Building with HIMARS—and KillNet was also the one who had taken out the Ukrainian military's drone unit.
After hearing this, Chen Ge's temples throbbed, the veins on his forehead and neck bulging. His hand tightened around the machine gun's grip until it let out a series of creaking, deforming sounds.
He was certain it was Lin Xiyue, using KillNet to help in secret.
What made his blood boil was that the Russian air-defense battalion was so fucking useless. Fine, so they couldn't stop the HIMARS—but couldn't they have said so sooner?!
There was no doubting it—it had to be deliberate. They'd clearly wanted to screw Wagner over.
Why screw them over? That Cook, with his stupidity plastered all over his face, a fool fit for a museum, had to bear full responsibility!
Holy fuck—these motherless bastards. Just you wait. Sooner or later I'll have my revenge for this.
The others were just as enraged, cursing the Russian military's female ancestors back eighteen generations.
"Heh, some fucking teammates they turned out to be! Suka blyat, I*******!"
Chen Ge's cursing was filthy, and Trench didn't cut in, because he understood how Chen Ge felt—a moment ago he'd been cursing even filthier than Chen Ge.
At the same time, he was a hundred percent sure the Russian military had done it on purpose. If they'd given just one minute's warning—no, even thirty seconds—Chen Ge and the others wouldn't have lost so many men.
"Sledgehammer, calm down! Ukrainian reinforcements are about to arrive. You have to use the Laboratory Building ruins to hold them off!"
Chen Ge took a few deep breaths, forcing down the fury in his heart, and said in a low voice, "Don't worry—the Ukrainian military will never get past the Laboratory Building!"
Chapter 68