How to Fight

The bullet found its mark; Gao Fei hit the enemy soldier who had poked his head out of the trench. The figure that had just shown himself vanished. Gao Fei was confident he had hit the man, rather than the enemy intentionally dodging back. Gao Fei was on high alert. The field of view on his thermal optic was limited, forcing him to sweep the rifle rapidly back and forth. If someone shot at him from outside the thermal optic's field of view right now, he would lose his edge of being both fast and accurate. On the competitive shooting range, accuracy came first, but on the battlefield, speed mattered more than precision. Gao Fei moved with blinding speed. When he spotted enemy movement for the third time, three figures appeared at once. They weren't going to throw their lives away one by one. If they were going to strike, they struck together. With three men opening fire simultaneously, even if one was killed, two could keep shooting. At such close range, it was genuinely hard to miss. The moment Gao Fei saw three men appear simultaneously, he knew trouble was brewing. The instant he fired, he dropped to his right in an evasive roll. Having had no formal military training, Gao Fei acted purely on instinct, but his reaction was swift enough. An instant later, a burst of bullets came ripping through the firing port. The rounds thumped into the bunker's interior walls with dull thuds. Lying flat beneath the firing port, Gao Fei had dodged the lethal volley, but he was now pinned down by the enemy. Samir Bek took over Gao Fei's position and began firing. The muzzle flashes were obvious when the enemy shot, allowing Samir Bek to gauge their general positions. Almost the exact moment the enemy opened up on Gao Fei, Samir Bek returned fire at them. Suppression and counter-suppression—the eternal dynamic of the battlefield. The situation was looking dire. Once Gao Fei was pinned down, the enemy no longer faced his lethal marksmanship. While their riflemen kept shooting, their rocket launcher gunner could line up and fire a rocket without pressure. A single rocket would guarantee death for all three men in the fortification. At a distance of barely thirty-odd meters, it was practically like pressing a barrel to their foreheads; there was no way to miss. Down on the ground, Gao Fei pushed up with his left hand. The moment Samir Bek fired, and the enemy was forced to shift their guns toward him, Gao Fei took a gamble and rose back up behind the firing port. They could not let that rocket be fired. Taking a bullet was acceptable, but taking a rocket meant instant death. The moment he stood back up, Gao Fei caught sight of at least five figures through his thermal optic. Suppress, then fire a rocket launcher. It was the most rudimentary tactic—effective, virtually unstoppable, and something that could only be countered at the cost of blood. Gao Fei did not disappoint the hopes 1st Squad had placed on him; he spotted the enemy soldier shouldering the rocket launcher. Five enemies in total: two shooting at Samir Bek's firing port, two suppressing Gao Fei's. Four men laying down suppressing fire while one launched a rocket. Ordinarily, anyone inside the fortification would stand zero chance of survival. In that flash of a heartbeat, the window of survival was fleeting. Yet there was a minuscule split-second delay—the gap in alternating suppression fire as the enemy shifted targets, the unavoidable pause required to react after an unexpected turn. It was a margin of time that no ordinary human could overcome. Yet Gao Fei could seize that exact sliver of time. Ignoring the shooters firing at him, Gao Fei trained his sights on the enemy carrying the rocket launcher. Target the greatest threat first. It was a masterclass in precision and timing. A fraction of a second later, the rocket would have been away; half a second earlier, the gunner wouldn't even have stood up. At this distance, a rocket launcher hardly required aiming; pointing it in the general direction was enough to hit the bunker. But right at the instant the gunner emerged with the launcher hoisted, Gao Fei fired. The rocketeer took the round. His head snapped backward, and his grip slackened as the rocket launcher dropped. Driven by residual nerve reflexes, his finger squeezed the trigger, sending the rocket slamming into the ground. The rocketeer had been killed an instant before he could properly launch the rocket. Had Gao Fei fired any earlier, the rocket might not have discharged at all, leaving an unfired rocket launcher for someone else to pick up and use. Now that the rocket had detonated into the dirt, they faced one less rocket threat. After taking that single shot, Gao Fei didn't bother trying for a second. The instant he fired, he threw himself backward again just as another volley of enemy rounds came ripping through the firing port. Samir Bek let out a muffled grunt and stopped firing. Andrey lunged toward Gao Fei's position, thinking Gao Fei had been hit rather than deliberately diving for cover. Right at that moment, Sokholov and the others finally opened fire. Gunfire abruptly erupted into an intense crescendo. The enemy's assault halted immediately, and within a heartbeat, they vanished without a trace. "Rex!" Sokholov's shout roared from outside, while Glaski's machine gun began chattering in continuous bursts. Sokholov only called out once before shifting urgently to his walkie-talkie. "Enemy attack, enemy attack! Fire illumination flares, over!" Andrey reached out and grabbed Gao Fei, but Gao Fei was already pushing himself back up into a sitting position. Shoving the obstructive Andrey aside, Gao Fei aimed his rifle through the firing port once more. He spotted the dead rocketeer being dragged away, catching a glimpse of two legs trailing along the dirt before disappearing around the corner of the communication trench. "I'm fine!" Gao Fei yelled back, then shouted again, "The enemy is still here! Watch out!" These enemies were different. Gao Fei couldn't put his finger on exactly what it was, but judging by the few men he had just engaged, they were on another level entirely. Their coordination was seamless. More importantly, their reactions were lightning-fast. They hadn't wasted a single second, nor had they made a single poor tactical choice. From the moment their first shooter was taken down, they had done everything an elite fireteam could possibly do. They fired in unison, and their shooting was deadly accurate. Most importantly, these enemies showed initiative. They didn't wait for a commander's orders to adapt. The moment they realized the battle wasn't going as smoothly as expected, they adapted instantly without needing a second to communicate. Every member acted spontaneously, switching tactics on the fly and pressing the fight regardless of their own safety. The difference between them and the forces Gao Fei had fought previously was staggering. Although there were at least seven hostiles, and at most four or more firing suppressing rounds simultaneously, it was safe to say there were very few squads in the world where four or five men could pin Gao Fei down like that. This unit was elite—unequivocally elite. Thus, Gao Fei's third shout was an acknowledgment of their caliber: "The enemy is top-tier elite! They're all outfitted with night-vision devices!" With that warning, Sokholov and the rest would know how to fight them. On the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, units where every single man had a night-vision device were rare—incredibly rare. Hearing Gao Fei's shout, Sokholov roared into his walkie-talkie again, "Flares! Suka blyat, flares!" Last time, once an illumination flare went up, more followed immediately, lighting up the entire battlefield as bright as day. This time, no matter how hard Sokholov screamed, not a single flare appeared. Sokholov had no other options. He had a night-vision device, but too few men in the squad possessed one. Without battlefield illumination, 1st Squad couldn't bring their full combat strength to bear. Sokholov pulled out a flashlight. Covering the lens with his left palm, he clicked it on with his right hand. After sprinting a few paces along the trench, he abruptly thrust the flashlight onto the lip of the trench, haphazardly planting it on a dirt mound before dashing furiously in the other direction. Even a sliver of light was better than nothing. Sokholov hadn't dared to hold the flashlight himself, and his caution was well justified. The moment he bolted clear, an exceptionally precise round blew the flashlight apart. The flashlight shattered instantly, and hand grenades came flying over right behind the bullet. The hand grenades were caught by the protective netting, keeping them from dropping into the trench. There had been a deliberate method to how the protective netting was rigged: it was pitched into a slope whenever possible so that any grenades landing on top would roll off. However, one grenade detonated in an airburst the instant it hit the netting, before it could roll away. An airburst had a far greater lethal radius. It wasn't a flaw in the netting; the enemy's timing on the grenade throw had been dialed to absolute perfection. Even without the netting, that grenade would have burst in the air. If Sokholov hadn't sprinted away in time, the blast would have killed him outright. Even after covering some ground, he still let out a gasp of pain and crashed face-first into the dirt. A rapid succession of explosions tore through the night, but most of the grenades fell outside the trench. The enemy hadn't retreated. If anything, they were already coordinating a second push. Gao Fei was growing astonished. Tonight's enemy was worlds apart from anyone he had faced before—an entirely different caliber of soldier. In the entire squad, Gao Fei was the only one with a thermal optic. The safety of the whole squad truly rested on his shoulders. Gao Fei could only sweep the area through the firing port, yet he couldn't spot a single figure. How was he supposed to fight a battle like this? As a sharpshooter, but also as someone who had been nothing more than a military enthusiast and a total newcomer, how was he supposed to fight this? No one had taught him this; no one had ever explained it. The enemy was clearly fully equipped with night-vision gear. Fortunately—a blessing in disguise—Gao Fei and the squad had captured night-vision devices in the previous night battle. The battlefield wasn't entirely one-sided in terms of situational awareness; they weren't crushed under a generational technological gap. This fight was still winnable. Glaski's machine gun opened up again. He could see the battlefield, and his suppressing fire relieved a tremendous amount of pressure on Gao Fei. Gao Fei searched intently through the firing port, but the enemies remained out of sight even as their shooting persisted. Gao Fei genuinely didn't know how to fight this. All he knew was that hiding inside the bunker severely restricted his field of fire. So he turned around and dashed for the rear. Unable to see the exit in the darkness, Gao Fei charged by memory. Reaching out to feel the entryway, he shoved aside the makeshift curtain of protective netting and bolted out. Rounding the bunker, Gao Fei crouched low, facing down the communication trench. Just then, Andrey, having followed him out without him noticing, crouched right beside him. "A countercharge?" Andrey asked in a whisper. Gao Fei hadn't known how to fight this, but Andrey's question made him realize that a countercharge might actually be a solid move. Without hesitation, Gao Fei answered, "Right! Countercharge!"