A Mercenary's War Chapter 87: Spooky Bombing

炸弹惊魂

Chapter 87: Spooky Bombing

Translated by: kevin1782

Edited by: Isalee

Gao Yang and Jin walked to the window facing the front street. Gao Yang activated the night vision scope and swept a glance at the uncontrolled streets. Though he didn’t see any heat-sourced activities, the uneasiness in him was still very strong.

Gao Yang used the scope to carefully search within the observable range, and he didn’t forget the street or the buildings. Very soon he found a few red figures appear in his scope on the roof of a building about five hundred meters away from him.

There were five people on the roof together. He did not know what they were going to do, but he didn’t think that they would appear on the rooftop in the wee hours of the night just because of boredom.

Gao Yang handed his gun to Jin, then he puzzledly asked, "Come and have a look, I’m not sure what these people want to do, but I feel that they look shady and suspicious. But they’re so far away, it should be okay, right?”

Jin used the night vision device to find the few silhouettes Gao Yang mentioned. He whispered, "Well, I can’t see what they wanna do, but how come I feel their movements look so familiar? Sneaking here and there, a man was squatting there and not moving, and four people on the watch at the side. That's the thing, ummm, it's like what my unit’s reconnaissance would do when they’re either taking photos or erecting laser-guided missiles.”

Jin casually said that. Then he and Gao Yang were totally stunned. Their eyes widened as they glared at each other in horror before saying a sentence in unison.

“Laser-guided bombs![1]”

After saying that, Gao Yang’s voice trembled as he spoke, "Sh*t, these people aren’t really setting up the laser-guided system, are they? Give me the gun, I remember the gun’s got another function — it’s able to observe wavelengths of light invisible to the naked eye. Let me see.”

He found the switch on top of the scope. But after switching on the additional function switch, Gao Yang took a second look. There were still no new discoveries. Just the same five red figures on the roof.

He relaxed and said, "Lucky! Didn’t find anything unusual, should be nothing to worry about. I’m gonna stare for a while more. See what they are trying to do... Wait! What’s this? F*ck! Lasers!”

He automatically shouted that, and the heart that had just relaxed somewhat felt like it had been clutched by a hand. The reason for that was because from the sight, he saw a thin light ray from one of the men on the roof, shining straight at him.

Gao Yang looked over and followed the trajectory of the light ray. No doubt about it: that ray’s endpoint wasn’t far from where he was. In other words, it was precisely the building they were in that was laser-guided. They would soon be greeted with at least one laser-guided bomb if there were no problems.

Gao Yang cried, "Laser-guided bombs! Run!”

Gao Yang’s first reaction was to run, but Jin immediately roared, "Can’t run, it’s too late. Find a way to ice the person setting the guide, and destroy the laser launcher, I’ll shout for people.”

Jin immediately turned to run. He ran and tore his throats out as he loudly shouted, "Laser-guided bombs, counterattack! Ice them with the counterattack!”

Coleman's people were in charge of the night guard duties. Jin only shouted a few times and immediately someone shouted in English, "Who’s shouting, what’s happened?”

Jin heard the response and immediately switched from Chinese to English, screaming, "Bomb, laser-guided bomb, fight back!" ”

Jin also learned English during his unit training. Notwithstanding that it was still far from normal dialogue and conversation, he still could shout out some military vocab terms. After Jin shouted those words, the whole building quickly became a discombobulated mess.

Not knowing who fired the first shot into the darkness, almost everyone followed by squeezing before the window and firing wildly. Though none of them knew where the enemies were, they picked a random direction anyhow and just started shooting blindly.

Seeing that someone opened fire, Gao Yang cussed[2] and also fired a shot. But his night vision scope wasn’t calibrated after the installation. There wouldn’t be a big problem if it were close-ranged, but now he couldn’t hit his target.

Gao Yang was exasperated to the point of lunacy. He repeatedly pulled the trigger, but the man operating the laser transmitter stayed motionless. The building was still irradiated to the laser rays. Gao Yang was actually more petrified of what would happen after alerting them unnecessarily — what was he going to do if they activated the launcher and ran away right after? Although he didn’t know how laser-guided launchers worked, he felt that they didn’t need to be manually operated all the time.

What Gao Yang knew was that it wouldn’t take more than four or five minutes for the bomb to fly from the point where the laser launcher activated the laser-guide. If shorter it’d be a dozen or even only a few seconds. It depended on the radius of where the aircraft would drop its bombs and also the type of deployed laser-guided bomb.

Now almost thirty seconds had passed by. If he couldn’t change the laser beam’s direction in time, his lifespan could be calculated in seconds.

Just as Gao Yang’s heart was aflame with anxiety, Grolev carried his RPD and ran over. Jin took his AK-47 and began shooting towards the spot he had memorized from earlier. Tribo was also holding an AUG and he copied the direction that Jin was firing at. There was only one night vision device. Now they could only rely on Lady Luck.

Grolev didn't have time to say anything, so he began firing his RPD once he mounted it on the window. Then he shouted, "Guide the bullets’ trajectory!”

As if awakened, Gao Yang roared, "The M2’s got a tracer, let’s go there!" 

Gao Yang could only be succinct as possible when he spoke, but Grolev still managed to understand him. He put down his gun and ran downstairs straightaway after turning his head.

The M2 HMG which had caused them great trouble was on the third floor. After capturing the building, Coleman's people shifted the M2 to the other side of the building. Gao Yang remembered that there were chains of tracer rounds on the M2.

It took less than ten seconds for Gao Yang and Grolev to run from the fourth floor to the third floor. When they got to where the MG was on the third floor, Coleman’s men were already operating it.

Grolev ran to the MG, wrenched aside the gunner in action, and roared, "Step aside, let me." 

After casting the MG gunner aside, Grolev began to shoot. Gao Yang immediately put the scope in front of Grolev’s eyes and yelled, "Can you see them?"

He didn’t look at the MG at all, he simply used the sight that Gao Yang was holding to adjust the firing trajectory. The ammunition Grolev was firing off was a configuration of three regular rounds with one tracer round. It would produce a very clear bullet trajectory line in the evening.

It was only a long burst before Grolev had found the correct ballistic trajectory. When he fired the second time, the 12.7mm bullets were slanted accurately towards the men who were operating the laser launcher on the roof.

The tracer shots from Grolev made a clear ballistic line of guidance. No need for anyone to command anything, immediately all guns in the building followed and adjusted to Grolev's trajectory. Hundreds of all kinds of guns fired at the same time, and bullets showered the roof like raindrops. Although the vast majority of bullets had no more power after five hundred meters without any accuracy at all, they could only rely on the blind luck.

Coleman's people were also getting really angsty; everyone knew that as long as the laser-guided bombs hit, none of the people in the building would even need to think about running. Thus there was no time to consider saving ammunition. They had four RPG rockets; they couldn’t care less about not being allowed to fire them indoors. They carried the rocket launchers and found a larger room. They immediately fired the rockets at where Grolev had pointed out.

Four rockets fired successively, but only one hit the distant roof. The M2 MG operated by Grolev stopped firing too.

"Change the ammo!”

Grolev didn’t release his tight hold onto the trigger ever since and the belt of a hundred and ten rounds was quickly expended.

Grolev finished two belts in succession. Just as the people at the side were scrambling to reload new belts, Grolev suddenly yawped[3], "The laser-beam’s position deviated, continue your fire, continue! Don’t leave them with any opportunities to adjust it!”

Grolev was the only person who could see the situation on the roof. The others could only furiously follow Grolev’s ballistic fire. Nobody knew if they had iced the people on the roof. Most importantly, nobody else knew if they had hit or destroyed the lethal laser beam that was pointed at them.

Hearing Grolev’s shout, they knew that deadly laser beam had deviated. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, but now wasn’t the time to relax. Before the bombs fell, as long as the laser beams came back, they’d be blown to bits.

The ammunition chain was quickly changed afresh. Grolev didn’t have to adjust the trajectory. When his hand wasn’t shooting, he firmly held onto the MG and didn’t move even a strand — he only needed to shoot again now.

A few seconds after Grolev’s MG roared to life again, a dazzling white light flashed through — followed by a deafening explosion. Approximately two seconds later, there was another extremely strong explosion.

The laser-guided bomb finally fired off.

Compared to the two laser-guided bombs’ power, the rockets that had scared the sh*t out of Gao Yang were basically firecrackers for children.

The place where the laser-guided bomb dropped to was also a building. The building was just six hundred or seven hundred meters away from the building where they were located, on the right side of the same street — bigger than the building they were hiding in. It’s originally Sandstorm’s main assault target tomorrow, but now, who-knows-which-country’s bomb helped Sandstorm Mercenary Corp big time.

After two explosions, the firing in the building suddenly stopped. All who had seen the scene were stupefied; if Gao Yang and his men didn’t find the people using laser-positioning in time, not even a person from this building would have survived.

"I shot the one who was positioning," he said whilst still stupefied when he finally stopped the shooting. “He was shot down, but the laser-beam didn’t change its position. Somehow, I think a bullet hit the laser launcher and the laser-guide shined upon the building behind them. But there are still survivors. He wanted to reposition. Luckily, he was iced to death. The people on the roof should all be dead. I'm not sure though, I think we gotta send someone to check. Too dangerous, I’m terrified. I just met my daughter and my wife, I don’t wanna die, it’s too friggin’ terrible, how can they think of using laser-guided bombs? I'm so close to NOT being able to go home. Guys, I think we need to leave this building.”

Grolev was muttering without sequence to himself, long-winded and a lot of stuff, but no one joked on him or responded him with persiflage. Everyone was inundated in the extreme exultation of surviving despite being inches away from the gate to hell. Likewise, everyone was immersed in extreme consternation. Everyone was thinking — if the guided bombs fell on their heads this time, what were they going to do? What if there were still others who intended to attack them with laser-guided bombs?

A mercenary was also murmuring to himself. "We’re mercenaries man, aren’t laser-guided bombs used in wars between countries? We're just mercenaries. Wherefore? Come on, is this really necessary? Just to blow up our building? Seriously?”

Green Mamba walked behind Grolev and stretched out his hands to pat both Gao Yang’s and Grolev’s shoulders. While still spaced out he said, "Thank you guys, y’all saved everyone. Now we're gonna spread out, can't stay in this building anymore."

Translator’s note(s):

Laser-guided bombs - came from the original text. Just beware when you search though — the original author mistook his chapters by repeating one of the chapters before, hence for this chapter on the Chinese site, it should be 86. But Accommodating Water’s Will accidentally repeated one of the chaps below and caused the numbers to become one fewer than the real chap. Thank you.Cussed - Cursed, just more slang and colloquial.Dead Poets Society - ‘A barbaric yawp!’ By Mr. Keatings (RIP Mr. Robin Williams) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6xyHna-NuM 

Chapter end