With that large of an explosion, the rebel commanders were reeling in from the shockwaves. They had no idea what had happened and to make things worse, there was no information nor communication back from their assigned Rebel Mechanoids that had been dispatched outside.
The only thing they could fathom was the kind of explosions that had happened. Did the Empire take notice of this small little backwater village and decided to send heavier artilleries or in a case like this, long range missiles to defeat their rebel Mechanoids?
No matter how they crack their heads, there was no incentive to get this village back. There were no precious resources around the village nor there was anything of value. The church had no relics and the people should be insignificant to the Empire.
But with that kind of explosion rocking even the underground, they would have assumed that the monsters in the Empire had decided to kill off their own squad as well. What heartless pieces of shit they were, so the Rebel Commander had thought and decided to try to reconsolidate whatever forces they had left within the area, since they could not detect any additional reinforcements around the area.
Yet the assumption of the Empire Squad dead immediately went into dust the moment they heard the pounding of the solo artillery gun on the church once more. On the other hand, Diaz, Click and Yinn returned to where Jin was, who had been happy triggering away the artillery gun.
“Rebels within the 150m vicinity confirmed dead,” Yinn reported and Jin nodded his head. But before that, the chatter within the tactical system was pure chaos and had zero radio discipline. They were all praising Click but she did not dare to take any of the credit. In fact, she was very sure that the explosives she used were of the standard C4s and they do not have such a powerful radius. Diaz tried to infer that there might be other explosives within the house but Click was definitive that when she planted the explosives, there were no other risky lying items around. Even stashed grenades could not make such a drastic change in the strength of the firepower.
‘Then perhaps the rebels labelled it wrongly.’ was the only excuse they could find but what bugged Yinn was how Jin had already known beforehand that it would be a series of crazy explosions. Else, he would not have pulled Yinn right behind the cover and pushed the other two to not have their heads exposed to the explosion. Yet, Jin was not saying anything and instead asked Click to take over the manning of the artillery.
“The rest of us, we will move in to intercept the rebel commanders. Be careful of any ambush from the houses. Grey Bear 02, cover our rear.” Jin dusted his knees and picked up his sniper rifle and made sure that both his rifle and P90 machine gun were still operable before asking Diaz to take point.
“Sir, did you do something to the explosives,” Yinn asked as they walked past the dead rebels and broken rubbles.
“Focus on the mission instead of thinking about things that had already been done,” Jin replied and told Diaz to pick up the pace moving forward. Soon, they reached the marketplace and there were indeed Rebel Mechanoids waiting for them. However, they were quickly taken care of the moment Jin shared the information about their location. Diaz stormed forward to take their attention while Jin and Yinn went opposite ways to flank the rebels.
While they were not caught off guard, the pressure from three sides eventually wore down their attention, and it gave the Grey Bears the opportunity to kill them off. Jin had also used the Tactical command to force Diaz’s legs into overdrive, allowing her to not just smash their cover but also allowing her to kick the rebel faces into oblivion. And since the marketplace was in an open area, Tellie was able to aid them as well, providing long assist fire which caused the rebels to be hesitant about popping their heads out of covers and giving the Grey Bears the guts to move towards them at blazing fast speed.
“Approaching the church. Grey Bear 04, Cease the artillery and gather whatever useable ammunition and guns at regular intervals. Do not let yourself be sniped down.” Jin said and with one last artillery fire, Click said she was done.
“Grey Bear 04, commencing sorting of trash.” Click said that knowing that she might draw ire but Jin did not care.
“Just curious, can we sell the guns?” Jin asked and the rest nodded their heads.
“It’s not very profitable unless they are banned weapons. Otherwise, it does worth some value even for trash.” Diaz replied, following the joke.<.com>
“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. We probably won’t have enough ammunition if we did not use their weapons.” Jin answered.
“LT is definitely from another world. Most commanders do not even think that way. Once they are out of ammunition, they surrender. Not even one would think of taking other people’s weapons.” Tellie commented while keeping them in her sight.
“Then are you saying that this entire world is littered with weapons?” Jin questioned and Diaz shrugged her shoulders at that question.
“You could say that, but most of these weapons are ‘recyclable’, just like us Mechanoids. So, we do not really care.” She explained but Jin was not listening as he once more shared information with the group.
“Yeap…they are indeed underground,” Diaz said as she took cover near the Church’s main door which had been burst broken by the artillery fire. “I stay watch of the area. Call me when you need me.”
Jin and Yinn understood and tried to find the entrance to the underground while the commander of Grey Bear gave another command to Click the moment he saw a bunch of people via his tactical system being held in one place in the basement.
“Grey Bear 04, wilco. After getting a few workable guns, I will be moving towards the Church.” Click answered.
“I found the entrance but the debris is blocking the basement doors,” Yinn reported and Jin quickly returned to her side.
“Do we have any explosives? I dont suppose we have extra after Click used them for the attack right?”
“I have some spare do and there’s still a few left in the armoury crate but it would not be advisable. The explosives might weaken the ground foundation even further and there is a chance the underground basement might collapse if we it incorrectly. Don’t want to be buried alive just because we are too lazy to find a proper way in.” Yinn replied.
“So… Was it not a good idea to bombard the place?”
“I am not saying the artillery was a bad judgement. It was the perfect bait to get the majority of the Mechanoids out of the church and into the open. You already saw the Tactical System’s data. There are not many rebels left unless those who were holed up in that room are not the villagers but additional Mechanoids standing by.” Yinn explained but Jin could not see a way forward.
He thought he was stuck but in reality, Yinn had a solution moving forward.
