14.Secrets of a Small Town

"It's not a loss of contact." Borg came up next to Cho Yu at this time as well, "According to the signals coming back, someone reported that 'it feels a bit strange here', then there was a violent coughing, wheezing, and then nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Ah, to be precise, there were no valuable clues on the surveillance screens, the cameras picked up nothing, except the fallen GI." Borg said gravely, "Anyway, the whole thing you can read it like this - the advance team arrived in town, found no ghosts whatsoever, and then they all collapsed on the ground, including MF1."

"Gassed?"

"But they were all wearing helmets, and their power armor was fully enclosed, ordinary poison gas can't penetrate, you should know that well enough old man, and there was that MF1!" Borg scratched his hair, "What kind of poison gas can penetrate into a battle tank and work so fast?"

"That I don't know, it can't be a curse, can it?"

"Who knows, maybe this was Indian territory hundreds of years ago." Borg waved his hand, "Anyway, we're acting as rear support now, it's better to stay clear with the front first."

There were still about twenty people left on the hill, most of them had followed from the 475th Mech Regiment, but there were two or three with different armbands that had followed from Base 47, including Kristin. The Latin girl was now holding a device that looked suspiciously like a laptop, and Borg pulled Zhao Yu and Hunter over, "Private, what's the situation now?"

"All clear, the Lieutenant and the others are about to enter the town." Kristin turned the screen around for them to see, it turned out to be a monitor with a dozen or so sub-screens showing different images, obviously cameras from Lieutenant Lee's unit.

Kristin pressed a few buttons and signaled Zhao Yu for them to put on their helmets, whereupon a noisy voice came over, "This is the southern entrance to the town of Hudik ... I saw the electronic public sign at the entrance to the town, last updated five days ago."

"No signs of life within three hundred meters, continue scanning."

"Buildings are largely intact, most doors are closed, looks more like a relocation than a sudden disaster."

"It's so strange, no signs of life ... not to mention people, tiny signals like rats and birds are absent ... damn, it's like a ghost town."

"Turn right ahead, we'll meet the advance team at the next street corner, all hands to level one readiness."

A heart pounding silence ensued as the soldiers made their way forward without encountering any obstacles until something appeared on the camera.

"Advance team sighted! All in an incapacitated state! Determine vitals immediately!" Several infantrymen rushed over, but just then, a sudden scream rang out from the headset.

"What's the situation? What happened?!"

"Attrition in B squad! Someone has fallen to the ground! The cause is unknown!"

"There's something! There's something around!"

"Fire! Fire ... cough! What's going on, it's ..."

"Nothing found ... nothing! We haven't spotted the enemy ... We're not sure it's under attack! But ..."

"Hell ... cough ..."

"Sgt. Borg, something's not right here, don't come over ...cough..."

Various cries of alarm, gasps, and intermittent gunshots rang out simultaneously almost instantly, and the camera feeds all became violently shaky before returning to static - the only thing in the feeds were a few mecha-infantrymen collapsed in front of the camera.

The chaos lasted a short time, maybe thirty seconds, maybe a minute, and then everything fell silent.

The 472nd had lost contact.

Zhao Yu, Kristin, and Hunter looked at each other, then together they looked at Borg.

"Sergeant, what should we do?" Hunter spoke first, "Lieutenant Lee seems to be telling you not to go?"

Borg nodded, "I heard you."

"So what's your plan?"

"Of course I'm going." Borg put on his helmet, "I'm not going to leave my brothers there unattended."

Zhao Yu grunted twice, "We're getting more and more like the unaware protagonists of third-rate horror movies."

"I'll find those horror movies you mentioned to watch when I have time." Borg said, "So old man, are you going to join us?"

"I'll think about it."

Ten minutes later, twenty-three Mech Infantrymen full of wary men, an MF1, and Borg, Hunter, and Cho Yu, three chariot pilots with no chariots, appeared at the entrance to the town of Hudik.

"This is a desperate attempt, all brace yourselves, brothers." Borg yelled loudly over the comm channel before privately chatting with Zhao Yu alone, "How are you feeling, old man?"

"There's good news and bad news." Zhao Yu replied.

"Let's start with the bad one."

"It's actually the same one." Zhao Yu sighed, "I had previously thought that my ability to foresee 'ominousness' ahead of time had disappeared, and it wasn't until I came to this place that I realized ... that it hadn't."

Borg was silent for a few seconds and asked, "How bad does it feel?"

"Awful, like swimming naked across a shit swamp knowing it's in front of you."

"Please change the metaphor to something less gross next time."

As seen on the screen earlier, the town was as desolate as it was going to get, with a few yellowed leaves and a few common everyday items scattered on the ground, most of the buildings were closed, and you could see through the windows that the stores were still furnished in a fairly orderly manner, and it didn't look like they had been through any kind of chaos.

The electronic billboards along the street were still playing advertisements on a loop, and the various ornaments hanging on the side of the road were still fluttering in the occasional gust of wind.

"It feels like the people of this town decided to go out on a group trip." A mech-infantryman grunted.

"Most likely a trip that will never return." Borg warned.

Kristin's voice interjected, "Seven hundred meters from where Lieutenant Lee and the others crashed."

"Good, guys hear me, buck up, we don't know what the hell is going on yet - Kristin, you stay here, I need back up."

"Yes sir." Kristin replied without hesitation, a person stopped right near the entrance of the town, opened that laptop and continued to operate, Zhao Yu also kind of admired the Latin girl's courage, in exchange for him to guard this place by himself alone, to say that his heart wasn't apprehensive at all would definitely be a lie.

"Three hundred meters from the target location, turn left at the intersection ahead." Kristin had already created a map of the town using the previous information and had been guiding the crowd forward, and as they gradually approached from the accident location, the air in the team began to become tense, Borg and Hunter both raised their rifles ready to fire, while Zhao Yu's left hand had not recovered yet, so he could only symbolically tighten the pistol grip on his waist.

"Target sighted, repeat, target sighted!"

"As per the previous plan, the first team moves forward to check, the others set their alert level to the highest!"

The four mech infantrymen formed a cover formation forward and quickly ran to the group of fallen comrades, one soldier pulled out a life detector and began scanning, "There are still signs of life! But there is organ failure, the cause is unknown! Further examination is needed!"

"The advance team also has signs of life, but the situation is serious, we may need to ...cough..."

The sudden sound of coughing rang out and Zhao Yu was startled, but as he looked around, he didn't find anything out of the ordinary except for the four soldiers who were coughing violently and slowly collapsing to the ground.

"Hell, what the hell?" Borg had just finished speaking when suddenly he too swayed, "To hell with it ..."

Not only the first team approaching Lieutenant Li and theirs, the people around Zhao Yu also stood unsteadily, the communication channel was filled with coughing and wheezing sounds, the soldiers collapsed one after another, but Zhao Yu himself, apart from feeling a little bit of breathing difficulty, and still not sure if it was his own mental effect, there was no problem at all.

"What the ... hell is this?"

"Sergeant! Nine o'clock, distance one hundred and fifty meters, active units appearing!" Kristin yelled anxiously, but Borg was already on the ground and unable to answer her.

"Nine o'clock ..." Jo Yu turned and ducked behind the MF1 - which had also been paralyzed, and it looked like Sgt. Hartman's crew had been hit as well - and -looked in the direction indicated by Kristin.

Two silhouettes did appear on the roof in the distance, which should be the rooftop of a shopping mall, and as Cho Yu was trying to adjust the focus of his visor to get a better look, a man suddenly stood up beside him, and fired several consecutive point-blank shots that way, and the two silhouettes wobbled a bit and fell to the ground.

"What did you do?" Zhao Yu looked to his side in surprise and realized it was someone with a completely different power armor paint job, "Gabriel?!"

Gabriel had been following the team all along, and Zhao Yu had completely forgotten about him.... It couldn't be blamed entirely on Zhao Yu, this warrior who had joined midway through the battle was powerful, but his sense of existence was just too weak, and he never took the initiative to speak on his own usually, and was often ignored out of the way.

And now, he once again struck out.

Noticing Zhao Yu's reaction, Gabriel explained, "They're snipers, aiming at us."

"Is it really an ambush?" Zhao Yu looked at his comrades who had fallen all over the ground, "But what's wrong with them? Surely they weren't hit by sniper fire right? Why are you fine again?"

"You're fine too." Gabriel pointed to the side of the chariot, "They seem to be as well."

It was then that Jo Yu noticed that there were two other mech infantrymen next to the chariot who hadn't fallen and were alertly aiming their guns around, one of them nodding his head in Jo Yu's direction.

"Sergeant Borg? Sergeant ... Hartmann? Corporal Battaglia?" Kristin's excited voice came through, "Is there anyone? Anyone else?"

"I'm still here, Kristen." Thinking that the Latin girl was going to break down if she kept this up, Jo Yu hurriedly picked up the channel, "There are still four survivors here, but I don't know what the hell is going on."

"Thank God ... wait, I'll be right over!"

"Wait, it's dangerous over here!"

"Is there any part of this town that isn't dangerous right now!"

Right at that moment, Gabriel suddenly pinned Jo Yu to the ground while a string of bullets hit the spot where Jo Yu was just standing half a second later.

"Enemy attack? Good thing too, at least it's a visible asshole!" The two mech infantry on the other side ran over and formed a battle group with Gabriel, at this moment, gunfire was coming from all directions, at least twenty enemy soldiers appeared at various intersections to attack towards the four people fighting on this side relying on their MF1 shells, and judging from the firepower, Zhao Yu's side was clearly at a disadvantage.

"We have to think of a way!" A mecha infantryman shouted, "We'll be trapped here! Who the hell are they?!"

"Judging from the paint job, they're from the Seventh War Zone." Gabriel said.

"The Seventh War Zone still has troops here?!"

Fresh gunfire rang out from one side of the street, two enemies were hit and temporarily lost their combat power, then they saw Kristin rushing over with a rifle sweeping wildly, the enemies were a bit overwhelmed for a moment, but they quickly adjusted their firepower and focused on shooting at Kristin, the defense shield on Kristin's body was glowing straight up, and just when Zhao Yu was worried that the Latina girl wouldn't be able to hold on, Kristin did a forward roll and Just in time to leap into the MF1's shielding range, the bullets shot from the opposite side almost nipped at her heels and hit the MF1 shell.

Zhao Yu was dumbfounded, he never thought that this girl who was supposed to be a technical geek would actually be so fierce in battle.