Gao Fei didn't linger around watching Sokholov. There was no point in useless theatrics on a battlefield. If someone needed to crowd around Sokholov waiting for his dying words, Glaski was enough.
Gao Fei was familiarizing himself with his shotgun.
A shotgun was certainly the right tool for shooting down drones, and the Saiga-12 was theoretically ideal.
The Saiga-12 was an adaptation based on the Kalashnikov platform. Its firing mechanism was largely the classic AK design, only scaled up for a much larger caliber. It looked remarkably similar to an AK-74, which was its greatest advantage.
Up close, anyone could tell it was a shotgun, but when observed from the air by a drone, telling a Saiga-12 apart from a standard AK rifle was nearly impossible.
The Saiga-12 was capable of full-auto fire, taking either ten-round magazines or twenty-round drums, but Gao Fei had only two ten-round magazines and a pouch of loose birdshot shells.
Shotgun loads came in many varieties: devastating slugs, heavy three-pellet buckshot for big game, nine-pellet buckshot for medium-to-large game... and the best kind for taking out drones was naturally birdshot. At longer ranges, birdshot lost its stopping power, but its upside was throwing a wide, dense spread.
Having never fired one, he didn't know what its recoil would feel like. Sitting in the trench, Gao Fei shouldered and raised the gun rapidly a few times. He found the Saiga-12 far lighter than expected, roughly on par with an AK-74.
He definitely needed to take a few test shots.
"I'm test-firing," Gao Fei warned his comrades, then raised the shotgun and fired into an empty spot.
The recoil was stout, a bit heavier than an AK-74's, but still surprisingly manageable.
He had thought every shot would throw him off balance and require re-aiming, but after pulling the trigger three times in rapid succession, he found the recoil in semi-automatic fire completely acceptable.
Recovery time to reacquire the sight picture was only a fraction of a second longer than with an AK-74—still very fast and well within acceptable limits.
Then Gao Fei held the trigger down, unleashing a three-round burst in full-auto.
In truth, he had intended to empty the magazine, but the shotgun jammed.
The Saiga-12 was quite reliable, but running a shotgun on full-auto had a much higher failure rate than in semi-automatic mode.
Fortunately, it was just a simple feed jam. Gao Fei racked the bolt, ejecting the unseated shell, and pulled the trigger again, firing off the remaining two rounds.
That was enough. He couldn't afford any more test shots; shotgun ammunition was scarce.
Dropping the magazine, Gao Fei began loading shells into it until all ten rounds were pressed in. Then he turned to Glaski beside him. "How is he?"
"He passed out."
Gao Fei checked his watch. It was three in the morning, still hours before dawn.
Sokholov had lost consciousness. There was no telling if he could hold out until morning.
Forcing an evacuation right now meant they would inevitably be blown up en route. Sokholov wouldn't survive, and two more men would die with him.
They couldn't just watch Sokholov die, but they certainly couldn't throw their lives away pointlessly alongside him either.
Gao Fei said abruptly, "I'll take Samir Bek and Andrey. Samir's shoulder is wounded, so he can get it treated back there anyway. If Andrey carries Sokholov alone, I'm afraid it'll be too slow."
Glaski replied in a low voice, "Samir's wound is too light. Pulling him out of combat permanently probably won't fly."
Gao Fei sighed and murmured, "Then let him come back after his wound is treated. It's better than dragging it out untreated like this."
"All right. Make a stretcher and have Samir and Andrey carry Sokholov."
Wounded or not, Samir Bek would have to haul the weight, endure the pain, and brave the danger on this trip with Gao Fei.
An untreated wound could get infected, turning a minor injury into a serious one, or even costing him his life.
If there was a chance to get it treated, it was worth taking. The risk was justified.
Samir Bek had been the first to throw in his lot with Gao Fei, and Gao Fei refused to abandon him.
With Sokholov injured, Glaski naturally stepped up as squad leader. But that left only four men behind; holding this position with so few was dangerously risky.
On any other position, using three men to escort a single critically wounded soldier would almost certainly have been forbidden, as it drastically crippled their combat strength. But here, Sokholov and Glaski called the shots, and Sokholov had to be saved.
Gao Fei had nothing left to prepare, and none of the others would be sleeping anyway. Gao Fei checked his watch and said softly, "I'm going to sleep. Wake me at first light."
"All right. Get some sleep."
He needed to conserve his energy and reach peak form.
The enemy he was facing was drones. A single mistake meant death. Using a shotgun against drones only slightly improved the odds; no one in their right mind believed a shotgun could bring down every incoming drone.
If anyone else had suggested escorting Sokholov back by shooting down drones, Glaski would have slapped them across the face.
Coming from Gao Fei, however, there was at least a ten percent chance of success.
It was still nine parts death to one part life—only marginally better than certain doom—and if Gao Fei failed, one dead man would turn into four.
Gao Fei understood that well enough, but what choice did he have? He couldn't just stand by and let Sokholov die.
Gao Fei fell asleep.
It was chilly, but he slept soundly all the same. He didn't worry about Sokholov's wounds or whether the enemy would launch another assault. When it was time to sleep, he slept, ensuring quality rest.
He slept straight until dawn, when Glaski woke him.
Gao Fei opened his eyes, rubbed them, and sat up.
Daylight had broken. The sun hadn't fully risen yet, but the sky was clear and bright.
"Give me a minute."
Pouring out some precious drinking water, he washed his eyes and carefully cleared away the crust. Then he stripped off every piece of unnecessary weight, slinging only a rifle over his back and holding the shotgun in his hands. He raised, turned, and lowered the gun in a few quick warm-up motions, working out the stiffness from sleep. "Ready," he whispered.
"Want to eat something?"
"No, I'm good."
"All right! Be careful."
Andrey had already fashioned a makeshift stretcher by running two slender wooden poles through jacket sleeves. All they had to do was place Sokholov on it and secure him with ropes.
Samir Bek's shoulder wound didn't impair his arm's movement, but it certainly hurt. In this situation, he had no choice but to bear the pain.
"I'll head out first. Only come out if it's clear."
Under the eyes of the squad, Gao Fei gritted his teeth, bolted forward a few steps, burst out from under the protective netting, and looked up at the sky.
No drones in sight.
Drone batteries couldn't keep them airborne indefinitely. The Ukrainians' most common tactic was keeping a reconnaissance drone aloft while grounding smaller attack drones in ambush. Once a target was spotted, the grounded drones were instantly activated and launched into the air.
So stepping outside wasn't the most dangerous moment—they had to wait a brief spell, though not for long.
If there were no drones nearby, that would be ideal; they could evacuate Sokholov without incident.
Gao Fei scanned the sky, nerves taut, turning in circles on the spot as he searched for any trace of a drone.
After about a minute, Gao Fei hadn't heard anything yet, but the men sheltering under the protective netting caught the sound first.
"Incoming—!"
Someone cried out in alarm. Amid their frantic warning, Gao Fei picked up the buzzing whine as well.
To hear it meant it was already close—within thirty meters at least.
Gao Fei spun around and spotted a black dot in the sky.
It looked like a fly darting across his vision.
Shooting a shotgun was different from a rifle. A shotgun offered a greater margin for error, and the farther out the pellets flew, the wider the spread—making twenty to thirty meters the ideal range for engaging a drone.
With a deafening boom, the drone detonated violently in midair.
Suicide drones carried relatively small explosive payloads, so an airburst caused virtually no collateral damage.
For anyone else, hitting a drone was a once-in-a-blue-moon stroke of sheer luck; for Gao Fei, it was routine.
That successful shot bolstered his confidence. He shouted, "Clear! Move!"
A shotgun truly did the job against drones—far better than a rifle. Gao Fei felt a surge of confidence.
Glaski shed no tears. As if seeing them off on an ordinary errand, he simply said, "Be careful. We'll be waiting for you."
Gao Fei didn't reply; right now, he needed every ounce of concentration fixed on the sky.
Andrey and Samir Bek emerged carrying Sokholov.
"You two take point."
If Gao Fei led, he would constantly have to look back over his shoulder at them. It was better for them to walk ahead so he could focus almost all his attention forward.
Andrey said nothing, trudging forward with his head down as he bore the stretcher, forcing Samir Bek to whisper, "Slow down, I can't keep up."
Gao Fei didn't trail too close to Samir Bek, maintaining a five-meter gap. This gave him a clearer angle to shoot down drones ahead, especially any bearing down on the three of them.
Three men and one wounded, they covered thirty-odd meters at a modest pace before Samir Bek suddenly blurted, "Drone—!"
Samir Bek's ears were truly sharp.
Gao Fei hadn't seen or heard it yet, but Samir Bek shouted immediately, "Left! On our left!"
Gao Fei whipped his head to the left, caught the buzzing whine, and saw a drone skimming barely above the ground.
The enemy drone pilots had gotten smarter, resorting to nap-of-the-earth flight to evade anti-air fire.
Since when did anyone deploy dedicated anti-air fire against drones? Since when did drones have to execute penetration strikes?
Only since Gao Fei had arrived at this position.
Gao Fei locked eyes on the drone.
To spot was to destroy.
Another shot roared out. Leveling in at three meters off the ground, the drone detonated in midair once more. Less than ten meters from Gao Fei, the airburst was visually staggering, yet harmless.
"Whoa—!"
A chorus of gasps rose from behind. Many hadn't seen Gao Fei shoot down drones before, but now they had witnessed it with their own eyes.
This desperate gamble for survival suddenly didn't seem so terrifying anymore.
Gao Fei said in a low voice, "Keep moving."
This was only the beginning. So far, only two nearby drones had attacked, but with Gao Fei's two blasts, who knew how many drone pilots had witnessed what happened?
Who knew how many drones would be scrambled to mount an attack next?
Drone operators had their pride too. On this battlefield, they had always reigned supreme, reigning as grim reapers.
Yet today, the unseen reapers who ruled this battlefield had been openly challenged.
Barring any surprise, the Russo-Ukrainian battlefield was about to witness its very first clash between a drone swarm assault and the ultimate human air-defense weapon.
But Gao Fei wasn't afraid. He hardly even cared.
Chapter 65