"Curse it, there are a great many of them here!" Gunfire came up about Zhao Jie, and he could do nothing but keep behind his cover.
The enemy's attack was too close-packed; he had no chance at all now of putting his head out.
And the enemy's fire had him wholly and entirely held down.
"Do not sit idle, the rest of you. Give me some supporting fire. They have singled me out here!" Zhao Jie shouted into his communications gear.
For they were found out now, so that these five naturally had no need to keep silence any longer.
And upon the communications gear, the case of the other two parties was none too hopeful either.
"Senior Colonel Zhao. Wait a moment for me, I shall just—"
At one of the fighting posts, a place had been cleared at last with great labor.
And the next instant, with one great roar, that end lost its voice as well.
Zhao Jie started, and then looked with great care toward that fighting post.
Of which the old shape could no longer be made out; there was left only a patch of ground giving off black smoke, and the men and the weapons within it were past all recognizing.
"Curse it! The enemy has used personal missiles!"
Came a bitter voice from the men at the other fighting post.
Personal missiles…
By the look of it the enemy's heavy weapons had come up in support.
And in such a case as that, these fighting posts of theirs being overrun was a question of time merely.
Their cover would stop the enemy's shot, and even lasers, without difficulty.
But against heavy fire it was a matter of one round.
"Senior Colonel Zhao! Withdraw, quickly. There is a self-propelled gun laid upon you!" came the terrified voice of the other party upon the channel.
A self-propelled gun?
Zhao Jie, as though something had told him of it, turned his head, and through one observation point saw that self-propelled gun fixed upon him.
The black mouth of the gun was laid upon him already.
And it seemed to him he could see the flash of the shell as it came.
And in that moment the days that were gone came back to him, and went round in his mind like the figures on a running-horse lamp.
Born of a common family.
But by reason of his parents' work, they might be counted among the better sort of commoners, and had the means to put him all the way through the Alliance's military academy.
But having no house behind him, the starship studies, which want great resources to bring a man up in, were not for him.
And he could only take the next thing, and choose the lowest category of all, the interstellar marines.
By good fortune he had studied excellently at the academy; and once truly in the service, he came through several engagements alive and won merit in them.
And climbed all the way to a senior colonel's rank, which is the highest rank a man of his common birth can climb to.
He had thought that once this war was over he would marry into some small house, and see whether he might climb a little higher.
Though it were only to be a brigadier, that his children might grow up hereafter upon what he had, and not be worn down as he had been.
But now…
By the look of it he was to stay here.
By good fortune, over these years he had set up a great many holdings for his parents and his brother and sister, so that they counted as a family in easy circumstances.
And with those death benefits Leader Song Chen had promised besides, his family might live like nobles,
so that his purpose in taking up soldiering might be reckoned seven or eight parts achieved.
He could die without regret.
He saw that self-propelled gun fire; and the flame at its mouth meant the shell had come.
And just as he waited for death to come down upon him.
A close-packed sound of cannon fire carried to him, and thereupon, at a place some ten meters from the fighting post Zhao Jie held, that shell burst.
And the whirl of the blast reached even to his fighting post.
Zhao Jie was dumbfounded.
What was the meaning of this?
The next instant he marked, outside the mecha store, a combat mecha very conspicuous indeed.
Being a senior colonel of the Alliance, he had studied the intelligence upon such things.
The quasi-T4 Lancer-class Medium Combat Mecha.
A combat mecha belonging to the other universe.
"It has worked! Colonel Zhao Chen has done it!" Zhao Jie could not hide what he felt.
And called to mind how, earlier, when Zhao Chen was laying out the plan, he had heard it out and thought it past believing.
To take one of the enemy's combat mecha?
Setting aside that most combat mecha want a piloting authority to start them, merely to come by a combat mecha inside the enemy's own mecha base is a very difficult thing.
And yet now,
that Lancer, standing there in plain sight, was the proof that Colonel Zhao Chen's plan had succeeded!
And thereupon the Lancer's muzzle was laid upon that self-propelled gun.
And in the instant of firing,
that self-propelled gun was destroyed.
For though both are machines, the two are not of one class at all!
And with this Lancer's appearing, the whole ground about the mecha store fell into an air of slaughter.
Two muzzles ran out from the Lancer's shoulders, which may be turned through all the points of the compass, and moved up and down within a certain compass besides.
And thereupon these muzzles began pouring out their curtains of shot without the least restraint.
And laid themselves exactly upon every position the enemy held.
And the butchery was played out again.
And the enemy's soldiers, once struck, could not come through such an attack alive, though they wore exoskeleton combat suits.
"Withdraw! Withdraw!"
"Report, the enemy has seized our quasi-T4 Lancer. Request support, request support!"
"My leg! My leg! Aaah…"
Zhao Jie watched this, and there is no saying how his heart lifted at it; he went back at once to his own place, and with that gun of his, plainly scalding hot by now, threw himself into the fighting once more.
"Kill, kill, kill, kill!"
A minute later.
Within a radius of three hundred meters there was no trace of any enemy to be seen.
And only then did the Lancer's gun cease to turn.
And Zhao Chen's voice came through to Zhao Jie and the rest.
"Report your losses!"
Such was Zhao Chen's question.
The hearts of Zhao Jie and the rest sank a little.
But they said it all the same.
"Zhang Wenze and Wu Zhenyu fought to the death at their own fighting posts, and were struck by the enemy's personal missiles, and are killed."
"Shen Jiangzhe has taken two rounds, but no vital organ is harmed; after the medical serum was put into him it is barely held in check."
Zhao Chen heard these reports out.
His countenance did not change.
Counting himself, a squad of six in all.
Two dead, one gravely wounded.
Which might be reckoned a very good result indeed.
"Look about you for any armored vehicle there may be. And assemble at my position within half a minute!" said Zhao Chen.
"Yes."
"And… if there is time enough, bring Zhang Wenze's body and Wu Zhenyu's. If you can find them."
Zhao Jie's body shook, and he held back his tears. "Yes!"
And thereafter Zhao Chen looked toward the communications tower at the city's other end.
He got in touch with Song Chen.
"Leader Song, my task at this end is complete. How does it stand at yours?" Zhao Chen asked outright.
At Song Chen's end the sounds of fighting could be heard, and a great confusion in them.
"Matters at our end are bad. We broke in from the communications tower's top, but were very soon blocked at the hundredth floor by the enemy's heavy units. We cannot break through for the present!" There was great anxiety in Song Chen's voice.
"Have every one of your people withdraw above the hundred and tenth floor within thirty seconds. And cover your ears," said Zhao Chen.
"Eh?" Song Chen checked, at a loss.
But he got no answer out of Zhao Chen.
For Zhao Chen was working the Lancer, and beginning the next part of the fighting.
For long before, when this task was being laid out, he had informed himself upon the enemy's communications tower as well.
It was written of in the files before the fighting; only it was not of great weight, so that little was set down about it.
And he knew that in a communications tower of this model, at the middle of it, there is one region very hard to take.
And the reason Zhao Chen had agreed to raise the enemy's notice by falling upon the mecha force.
Was in truth that he had another arrangement besides.
A sound came from behind the Lancer mecha, and a long spear sprang out.
And the Lancer gripped this spear fast.
And thereupon its body bent, and all its power rose to the very limit.