If Andrey was the epitome of a reckless brute, Parker was the quintessential old fox.
Andrey pushed forward with such reckless momentum that he threw the entire squad's tempo into chaos, forcing everyone to sprint frantically after him. They barely even understood how the fight had played out—starting in utter confusion and ending just as bewilderingly.
Parker, on the other hand, was exasperatingly slow.
Cradling his rifle, he crept forward inch by inch. Every time he reached a bend, he had to stop, dawdling as he poked his head out to check again and again. Only after confirming the trench was empty would he finally make a sudden dart around the corner, after which he went right back to his sluggish crawl.
With everyone marching to different beats, Parker's crawl ran up against the squad behind him, who kept pushing forward at their normal pace until the men were practically bumping into one another's backs.
At last, Parker halted. He made a hand signal, gesturing for the men with the rocket launchers behind him to step forward and loose their rockets first.
Parker didn't possess an ounce of self-awareness as the point man. He seemed to have completely forgotten he was just cannon fodder, acting as though he could dictate how others should fight.
Yet Sokholov didn't object in the slightest. He gave a wave of his hand, signaling the men to fire the only two rocket launchers they had.
Firing rockets inside a trench was a messy affair.
Any rocket launched from within a trench had to be aimed straight down the trench line. Otherwise, the backblast could easily injure friendly troops, and the space behind the gunner had to remain clear. To launch one safely, the gunner had to lean out of cover.
As the two men carrying the rocket launchers maneuvered into firing positions, Sokholov glanced toward Gao Fei. After a brief hesitation, he kept his voice low and asked, "Once the rockets hit, can you seize the chance to pin down the embrasures? Suppress them as best you can so they don't get an opening to shoot."
Gao Fei thought it over.
Pinning down firing ports was a formidable task.
The enemy inside the bunker stayed cloaked in darkness. Unless they were actively shooting, there was no telling whether anyone was even stationed behind a given port.
With six firing ports in total, which one was he supposed to engage first? Rotating fire continuously across all of them would require at least six riflemen firing simultaneously. A single rifle would burn through its magazine in seconds, making it practically impossible to keep all six ports suppressed until the assault team could close in and heave hand grenades inside.
Furthermore, the barrier troops' bunker sealed off the trench. From where Gao Fei stood, he couldn't even see the bunker's face. To bring fire onto those ports, he either had to climb out of the trench to shoot from elevated ground or charge down the trench and expose himself completely to the enemy's sights.
"I can't guarantee I'll keep all the ports suppressed."
"Nobody expects you to shut them down completely—the angles won't allow it anyway. Your job is just to cut down their firing windows as much as possible. As long as you put rounds into those ports in time, it'll at least disrupt them. Get ready."
No one fought a war without casualties, and Sokholov never expected to take a fortified position with zero losses.
Besides, Parker was holding the lead. If anyone was going to die first, it would be him.
Sokholov nudged Parker with his rifle barrel. "Get ready. The moment the rockets hit, charge up and heave grenades inside. Don't think about pulling any tricks. If you make one wrong move, I'll put a bullet through you first."
Parker curled his lip and murmured, "I know what to do."
"Launchers ready."
Sokholov exhaled, then ordered in a low voice, "Fire!"
Two sharp whooshes tore through the trench as the rocket launchers fired one after the other.
The engagement distance was far too short—not at all the optimal range for a rocket launcher. Had they been any closer, the rockets wouldn't have even satisfied their arming distance.
The detonations erupted almost simultaneously, sending a plume of dust and smoke billowing instantly above Gao Fei's head.
Right behind the blast, Parker shot forward like an arrow, with Andrey charging right on his heels.
Sokholov bolted forward to follow. He had originally intended to stay right behind Parker, but Andrey charged too aggressively yet again, breaking the proper combat formation.
Sokholov didn't get angry, though. In his eyes, Andrey wouldn't live through this anyway.
Why waste breath getting mad at a dead man?
Yet two steps into his sprint, Sokholov felt that something was amiss.
Glancing backward, he saw no sign of Gao Fei, who should have been right behind him.
According to Sokholov's plan, Parker would lead the charge to soak up incoming fire. If Parker died, so be it; as long as he could draw their fire first, it would buy Gao Fei a window of opportunity to shoot.
The problem was that Gao Fei hadn't followed, nor was he anywhere in the trench behind them.
Gao Fei was hardly the type to flinch at a crucial moment. Shocked and anxious, Sokholov swept his gaze around—only to see in utter astonishment that Gao Fei had climbed completely out of the trench, sprinting forward in a low crouch along the berm running parallel above them!
Sokholov's heart leapt into his throat.
Even if someone needed to leave the trench and charge across open ground, it should never have been Gao Fei.
With so many men available, almost anyone could serve as cannon fodder to draw fire. How could they risk their sharpest marksman and core firepower?
Before Sokholov could let out a warning shout, Gao Fei opened fire from above.
By leaving the trench, Gao Fei held the high ground. Before Parker could even round the corner, Gao Fei had already caught sight of the enemy bunker.
The six firing ports didn't all face the same direction. A single glance told Gao Fei that engaging four of them would be enough to neutralize the bunker's fire onto the trench.
Hitting four ports at once was impossible, so he had to engage them in succession.
Gao Fei decided to work from right to left. Firing on the run, his first round punched straight into the rightmost port. He squeezed off another, sending a bullet into the second port from the right.
The third port spat fire. Gao Fei had no idea who it was aiming at, but he methodically snapped a round into the opening, and the muzzle flash went instantly dead.
Moving on, he fired into the fourth port. Instead of engaging the fifth, he swung his barrel back and planted another shot into the rightmost embrasure.
"Get down here!" Sokholov barked up at Gao Fei, who had already fired his fifth round.
Ignoring the shout, Gao Fei squeezed off a sixth.
Whatever was happening inside the bunker, after that single outgoing shot, not another round came out.
Parker was remarkably quick on his feet this time. Clutching a hand grenade, he sprinted right up to the bunker in a single burst, pressed his back against the wall beside a firing port, pulled the pin, and flipped the grenade inside with a backhand toss.
Before Parker could even grab a second grenade, Andrey rushed up and lobbed his own straight into the port.
Smoke and dust from the detonation billowed out through the opening.
Andrey prepared to throw another, but Parker, pressed flat against the bunker's dirt wall, said with smug confidence, "They've already cleared out. Otherwise..."
With virtually no resistance, the defenders had surely fled. Yet before Parker could finish his sentence, frantic, agonized shrieks erupted from within the bunker.
The chorus of cries definitely didn't come from just one man.
Parker froze in disbelief. "There are actually people in there?"
Andrey couldn't care less what Parker was babbling about. He hurled two more grenades inside in rapid succession before pressing himself flat against the bunker wall alongside him.
Another wave of smoke and dust blasted from the embrasures. Sokholov threw his back against the wall directly across from Gao Fei and roared, "Get down here! Who authorized you to go up there?"
As Sokholov's shout faded, Parker spoke up for the third time. "This situation isn't right!"
With that, Parker spun around, rounded the flank of the bunker, and peered through the rear entrance.
Parker had no chance to pull any tricks, as Sokholov followed him around immediately.
Staring at the corpses sprawled haphazardly across the bunker floor, Parker froze in a daze, his face blank with confusion. "Something's wrong... I feel... Wait, what happened? This isn't normal. Something completely abnormal happened here!"
Chapter 37