Fire Density. Макс Глебов

the Dragon’s automatic cannon constantly shooting our way out from every safe haven.

      “Cadet, are you ready?” From the sound of the Lieutenant’s voice, there was doubt. He has already lost one universal commando, but Alexey was sure of Gnezdoff, and that guy must have done his job at the cost of his life. The Lieutenant didn’t know much about me, but he didn’t have any other options anyway.

      “That’s right, Lieutenant, Sir. Which way to draw the enemy?”

      “First, hold them here. Then lead around the rendezvous point. Give us an hour’s head start and leave. We’re gonna go east. We’ll try to get out on foot. We’ll turn on the beacon every four hours for ten minutes for you. ”

      “I got it. I’m ready.”

      “Good luck, Cadet. And thank you for the missile brought down. Well done.”

      “Serving…”

      “Put it aside, Lavroff. Squadron, follow me in the usual way. Go!”

      And I was left alone.

      The quargs didn’t get ahead. Either they were waiting for reinforcements or they weren’t feeling very confident, although their superiority of firepower was noticeable, even when our unit hasn’t split up yet. Now I had to play the whole group by myself.

      Basically, with my equipment, I didn’t see anything impossible about it. My possession of three kinds of weapons made it possible to simulate different activities. That’s what I’ve been doing since I activated the second EW station in my spacesuit. This mode absorbed a lot of energy, but it’s become much harder to detect me with standard scanners. The Luyten-5 experience was very useful.

      I fired three rounds from my automatic gun at the robot that stuck itself out in the open. I didn’t manage to penetrate it’s armor, but I spoiled his mood and forced him to hide behind a massive rock. Now it was time to change positions and wait a little bit, keeping my head down. My scanner picked up some questionable activity at the top of the hill, and I fired in a burst from the rotary machine gun on its crest without trying to hit anyone, but simply showing the enemy the presence of a shooter with a different weapon. Right after that, I stepped back and started to pick a position to work with a sniper rifle. The caliber of this rifle was, by the way, 18 millimeters, so only the Small Dragon pilot could feel relatively secure.

      The alarmingly screeching scanner informed me that the quargs had launched a drone in my direction. They wanted to know where the shooters were, which was understandable. The drone was a small machine that didn’t fly fast, though it tried to hide in the folds of the area, briefly showing up from behind the rocks and the crests of the hills. It was almost a perfect target for a sniper rifle, especially if it was guided not by a man, but by computer-aided fire control. Shot, and the drone, which was broken through, fell to the ground as a pile of useless junk, but my position it marked and managed to transmit the information. The Small Dragon did not spare me a rocket, which was primarily intended to fire at air targets, but with a manual guidance, it was quite suitable for destroying enemies on the ground. My light armor was highly contraindicated to take direct hits or be in the vicinity of explosions of something heavy. So I jumped aside, made a roll and one more jump to the big rock, which took the brunt of the strike elements. I changed position once again…

      I knew the quargs would soon get bored of this dance, and they would try to outflank the evil shooters. Except they’re not the only ones who can use drones, I love and respect these machines, too. On Luyten-5 I liked very much the black „cockroaches” of Captain Mbia, and I cadged three pieces from him. Little arthropod devices the size of mice have sprung up to the top of the nearest hills. Within line-of-sight range they were communicating with my suit through laser-optical channels and ignored virtually any interference. But now I saw what was going on in the back slopes of the nearest heights. I had a flying drone, too, but only one, and I decided to save it for the time being.

      And in the back slopes, there was something interesting going on. Two quargs in heavy infantry armour moved gently along the ridge of the nearest hill, bypassing me on my right. There were another two on the left, and in front of me, distracting my attention, the combat robot was constantly bustling around, it kept popping out of hiding and shooting at me. The Small Dragon pilot wasn’t afraid of my gun, because from that distance it could only scratch the paint on his armor, well, maybe leave some small dents. Well, that was not a luxury fly-car. Scars like that are true decorations for a war machine.

      There was an urgent need to resolve the problem of this bypass. Having fired my gun at random, not to hit someone or make the quargs hide, but to show them that I’m here and I’m not gone, I moved back and left. I moved pretty hard so I could get in the way of the couple of enemies that tried to bypass me, but keep out of their sight. I wasn’t going to kill them, I had another job to do. I need to slow down my pursuers, so I’ll hold them back. The bullet from a sniper rifle of my caliber, when hit in the limb, causes a serious wound, even if the enemy is in a heavy infantry space suit. After the shooting, I hid immediately, and watched the result with the help of the „cockroach”.

      The result met my expectations. The unharmed quarg tried to pull the wounded from the battlefield, constantly staring and at any second expecting a new bullet from the invisible sniper. But the sniper kept quiet. I still didn’t shoot when the aggrieved couple got help from two more infantrymen under the cover of that Small Dragon with the slightly scratched paint on the armor. I was wondering where they were taking the wounded. They arrived here by something.

      Using some specialized device, the quargs quickly placed the injured on the back of the robot, and the machine ran over the hill without losing any time. My „cockroaches” could not see that far, so I decided to risk the flying drone. I gave the miniature flyer an order to escort the robot, ordering it to keep a max distance from the target.

      In the absence of the robot, the enemy infantry did not attack and kept quiet. I knew it wasn’t for long. I didn’t think they had their dropship far away, because they came at us pretty fast after our drone reached the rendezvous point. So I used the pause to break off the enemy and to get to the rendezvous point that I’d assigned to my flying scout.

      The quarg dropship was within fifteen minutes of a careful and slow march. My opponents lost me and now they were probably trying to figure out where I got to, and where the main group went. According to my orders, I’ve been truthfully dragging the quargs up and down the hills for an hour. I was supposed to get back to the squadron, but it wasn’t my plan, at least now. I knew perfectly well that if I left now, I’d be at a dead end again. The power in the suit accumulators will soon be depleted. It wouldnʼt gonna be enough for a 400-kilometer walk in the desert. So, whatʼs next? To try to get out on foot, unarmed, and in just overalls? No. It’s better to risk doing something now.

      I got to the dropship when the quargs were still shaking the hills and ravines in search of the missing enemy scouts. The robot ran to the aid of its infantry a long time ago, leaving the wounded in the care of the pilot and another quarg in the armor, who was assigned to the dropship apparently for security. Now the pilot was fiddling with the suit of the wounded quarg lying on the dropped ramp of the ship, and the guard was standing there, looking around.

      Two dry clicks of my sniper rifle shots scattered across the hilly plain. The enemies sank down on the ground like weak puppets, but the signal of the attack on the dropship must have gone to the main group of quargs. Of course, I was hoping that my jammer wouldn’t let that signal get through, but the distance from which I fired did not let me be entirely certain, especially considering the fact that my position was not between the dropship and the main enemy forces, but on the side, otherwise I just wouldn’t see the target.

      I ran without saving energy and squeezing maximum speed out of my gear. Every second could have been crucial. I didn’t kill the wounded quarg, just shoved him off the ramp with the pilot’s body and dived into the shadowy insides of the quarg dropship. I almost fell over a body in a space suit. That was a human space suite. Anton Gnezdoff was lying on the side of the ship and showed no sign of life. I saw a ragged hole in the chest plate of his armor, it looked like he was hit by a large shard. But the private was alive although unconscious. I couldn’t afford to look into his condition now and jumped further to the cockpit.

      With