Zhao Jie looked that way just then.
Under the light of the moon,
that mecha, no more than quasi-T4 grade, seemed at this moment to give off a radiance of some kind.
The whole steel body of it set in the posture of a man about to throw.
And the next instant,
with a sound of the air torn open, a whirl of wind went up that blinded Zhao Jie's eyes for a moment.
And far off,
suddenly there came a great roar.
Zhao Jie narrowed his eyes and bore the smarting of them, and looked toward the city's other end,
where a communications tower stood.
And at this moment the look of that tower was very singular.
For at the middle of it a great hole had been blasted open,
as though the thing had been pierced clean through by something.
Zhao Jie drew a cold breath.
If he remembered rightly, the Leader and his people should be inside that very tower.
And at this, upon the channel that carried to all of them, came Zhao Chen's voice.
"How stands it at your end?"
A long while went by.
And only then did the cursing come back from that end.
"Zhao Chen, there was no such step as that in the plan!"
Song Chen bent his head, and through the gaps in the floor slabs could see the broken ground blasted open below.
Which had been a place the enemy held stubbornly, and the very place they had so long failed to take.
And which at this moment was simply gone without a trace.
The thing had happened so suddenly!
And had that attack come the least degree higher, their end would have paid a bitter price for it, and he himself might even have been buried there.
"Is any man dead?" Zhao Chen asked coldly.
Song Chen asked it of the several squads.
And the answer he had was that there were no losses, only that some had perhaps taken hurt from the sudden shaking.
"Since no man is dead, and the road is open. Then what is the difficulty?" Zhao Chen said calmly.
"You—!" Song Chen found that with this man he seemed, several times over now, to have no way at all.
He would have opened his mouth and cursed Zhao Chen roundly, but a great many could hear upon this channel.
So he could only force the impulse down.
"Go on with your action; we shall come up in support. Keep in touch," Zhao Chen said mildly.
"Mm," Song Chen answered him.
"Leader, this Zhao Chen has no eye for anyone above him! That attack was not in the plan at all! And had his attack gone the least amiss. What then of your safety?" A petty officer at his side could bear it no longer, and spoke out against him.
"I have said nothing of it myself. What are you in such a devil of a hurry about!" Song Chen glared at the fellow with no good grace.
And then looked at the ground cleared open below.
"Order all squads to go down at once. The enemy's main communications control room is at about the seventieth or eightieth floor. The last thing standing in our way is cleared now. We must take it before the enemy destroys the communications gear!" Song Chen said coldly.
And thereupon he kicked open the one floor slab that remained below them.
And below that was the great hole blasted through.
They must cross this space quickly, by ropes or by some other means.
And the simplest was naturally the rope.
First several men went quickly across, and set the anchor points fast.
And Song Chen followed hard after them, and began to slide down.
Though in the course of it, Song Chen looked toward the quarter where this city's mecha force had its station.
And could see the sky over there full of fire and smoke.
It was hard to imagine how, with six men only, Zhao Chen had wrought so great a confusion.
And how, at so great a distance, he could give support so exact.
That man… who under heaven was he?
……
"Gulp. Colonel Zhao. That attack of yours just now… wasn't it too reckless by half? The Leader was in that place, after all." Zhao Jie brought an armored car to a halt below Zhao Chen's quasi-T4 Lancer-class Medium Combat Mecha, his heart still in his mouth over that attack of Zhao Chen's.
"The result was good. And in the case as it stood then. They had no heavy fire, and could never have broken through a hundred floors of armed defense in any short time. Rather than let them spend their strength there, it was better to take the risk. And I had seven or eight parts in ten of it," Zhao Chen answered calmly.
Seven or eight parts…
Zhao Jie truly did not know where Zhao Chen came by such confidence, but the result at least had answered to his word.
"Are you ready?" Zhao Chen asked.
"We have found an armored car. It mounts one autocannon and four miniature missiles. And we have gathered some weapons besides, such as guns and grenades," said Zhao Jie.
"Then let us set out. I open the road in front, and you follow behind. And if we meet with fighting, look to yourselves first of all," Zhao Chen said calmly.
"Yes."
Though Zhao Chen's way of fighting is at times very reckless and very rough, Zhao Jie and the rest now obeyed Zhao Chen's orders wholly.
And though he should now set them an order there was no living through, they would carry it out without the least hesitation.
Which is perhaps a kind of trust that is bred between life and death.
On the road toward the communications tower,
Zhao Chen and the rest met with no very great resistance.
For there had never been many troops stationed in this city to begin with.
And once the fighting began, a great part of them had poured toward the mecha force's station, and were there washed away by the Lancer that Zhao Chen had in his hands,
while the rest had likely had the order that the communications tower was attacked and support was wanted.
And had gone toward the tower; so that upon the road between, hardly a soldier was to be seen.
Zhao Chen raised his head and looked at the sky.
The threat within this city might be gone.
But the true threat of this engagement had not yet come.
It was the enemy's interstellar warships.
What lay outside the atmosphere he did not know.
Nor did he know whether the enemy would dare bombard a city of their own from orbit.
Every civilization has its own way of settling such things.
The same case, set in the Alliance: because of the aliens' invasion, the Alliance's high men ordered an orbital bombardment outright.
But set in this universe he did not know, it may be their people would not suffer such a thing to happen.
The more so as they and a threat such as the aliens' are not of one class at all.
But it must be understood that within the atmosphere, Zhao Chen had earlier seen a warship of T3 grade with his own eyes.
And even a warship of T3 grade, upon this planet,
is a thing enough to sweep all before it.
But… it is not that there is no means of answering it either.
Which is why Zhao Chen had agreed to go to the mecha force's station, and had picked out this quasi-T4 Lancer-class Medium Combat Mecha, the hardest of the lot, outright.
For this trophy's task was very far from over yet.
And at this Song Chen's voice came upon the communications channel.
"We have broken into the enemy's communications headquarters at our end. The technical people within destroyed some of the gear. Our own technical people are checking it over now, to see whether ordinary communication can be had."
Zhao Chen said nothing.
For this case he had reckoned upon long before.
He could only pray that the god of fortune would stand on their side.