Chapter 75 - A Desperate Escape

“The Captain said for us to switch shifts.”

The truth was that Emil came to see Black Mamba because he was worried about him. However, he used the Captain as an excuse because he was too embarrassed to admit it.

“Just go and rest. Night goggles are useless in this kind of weather. You wouldn’t be able to see the enemy even if they were right under your feet.”

The wind had died down, but it was still hard to see. The sky and ground were covered in sand. Even the moonlight had become hard to see.

“That’s true, but you need to rest too.”

“Thanks for worrying about me. Partners like you are the best… Wait!”

Black Mamba crouched and pressed his ear to the ground.

“Emil, it’s them. Their engines are loud. It’s the tanks we saw earlier.”

“How far away are they?”

“Around 7 to 10 kilometers?”

“Those f****** bastards, why do they keep coming after us?”

“The Captain and that woman are the problem.” Black Mamba clicked his tongue.

“F***, the Captain must have gone crazy for a moment. Be sure to go beat him up later. I need to report this.”

Emil ran to alert the camp.

The camp began to buzz loudly as the mercenaries immediately armed themselves and ran to their assigned places. When threatened by death, they moved fast.

“Black, it’s the Captain. Can you confirm their distance?”

“They’re around 7 kilometers away. Their numbers are high.

“F***, I can’t get a good view because of the wind.”

“The temperature is going up. The wind will die down soon.”

“Jang Shin, prepare the flare launchers.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Black, move out once they are 3 kilometers away. Guard the rear.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mouris, after the Claymore goes off, grab the machine gun.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Captain used his headset to go over each of the team members’ assignments. His senses were heightened. He believed that he had mistakenly led the enemies to their camp. This made him feel guilty.

“S***, what are those?”

Black Mamba saw a single group wearing yellow-brown gandouras move near their camp in Erra Ekadini. Due to their ability to camouflage and their sharp movements, he could tell they were from the same group as those who surprise attacked their rear at Uldi Hamarl.

“They’re the starting scouts.”

Black Mamba, who had been aiming with his Dragunov, set down his firearm and spoke into his headset.

“Black here. Twelve starting scouts are approaching.”

The Captain immediately responded after receiving the transmission.

“Let them pass.”

“Understood. I’ll keep my eye on them.”

“Roger.”

Black Mamba understood the Captain’s plan. If the enemies were going to attack them, it would be more advantageous to drag their main unit into the minefield. There was no reason to alert their guards by shooting down the scouts.

“Black, those bastards are approaching the camp.”

“Let them be. They’ve detected our movements anyway. So, let them look at our camp. Hopefully, they’ll go back and drag their comrades here afterward.”

Emil was worried, but Black Mamba was relaxed. His sharp eyes followed the scouts who were climbing the dunes. The possibility of them discovering his hidden teammates was small, but unexpected things did happen in life. He was prepared to shoot them if anything happened.

The scouts were careful.

They simply checked the camp’s existence from afar and turned back without provoking them. When the enemies disappeared back into the darkness, Emil let out a sigh of relief.

“Phew!”

Emil removed his finger off the Minimi trigger. He trusted Black Mamba, but he was nervous to the point that his fingers had turned sweaty.

“They’ll rush over like hounds.”

“Then we’ll have to give them a very warm welcome.”

“As long as I have this dude and Black Mamba, I have nothing to fear.”

Emil tapped his Minimi with his finger.

“Didn’t you complain about not being able to trust me before?”

“Which bastard said that s***?”

Emil opened his eyes wide and glared around.

“Wait, there’s quite a lot.”

Black Mamba ignored Emil and spoke into his headset.

“Black here. Enemy sighted 3 kilometers away. There are three pathetic panzers.”

“Stand by.”

“Done. Moving to the rear now.”

“Roger.”

“Black, you said there were three panzers?”

“Jang Shin will take care of them. With a single shot from the Panzerfaust, that tank will be done. Jang Shin is the type of person who can land shots precisely on a panzer with a grenade launcher. So, we should go catch the mice in the back.”

Black Mamba carried his Dragunov and stood up.

“Damn, can’t you help me up? You’re strong enough.”

Emil carried his heavy magazine and complained. The Minimi bullets were gathered in a plastic magazine that contained 200 bullets per cartridge belt. They weighed 3.5 kilograms. The bag, which had ten of those magazines, weighed 40 kilograms. The weight of the Minimi was 7.2 kilograms. This meant that he had to run around carrying 50 kilograms. Emil had the right to complain.

“You weakling!”

Black Mamba snatched the magazine bag and disappeared into the night within a flash.

“My God, I’m being called a weakling at this age.”

At a height of 190 cm and a weight of 90 kilograms, Emil was heavily muscled. The word ‘weakling’ didn’t suit him no matter how he looked at it.

Clack- Tap- Tap-

Emil pulled out the Minimi’s magazine and clipped on the cartridge belt. After shaking off his severe cold, he was feeling energetic.

“Black, please don’t raise your knife and spill blood everywhere.”

“I wonder if I’ll be able to recognize you while I’m fighting. I mean, drunk people can’t even recognize their own father during the daytime. Emil, you should watch your back thoroughly just in case.”

“Wow. That’s a horrible joke.”

“If I accidentally kill you while going crazy, I’ll make sure to give you a nice funeral.”

Emil began to imagine an enemy soldier with his neck severed and head crushed. His body trembled at the image. Even if he did die, he didn’t want to die in that manner.

“Ha, and you call yourself my friend. If the enemies plan on coming here, they should come quickly. I’m so tired. I feel like I am going crazy.”

As expected, Emil had a heart of steel. However, it was hard to tell whether it was his metal heart or his loose screws speaking when he said he was tired before the battle.

“They’re here.”

“They’re here?!”

Emil put on his night goggles, but he couldn’t see anything due to the excess dust. Even technologically advanced gear had its limitations.

Black Mamba turned on his headset.

“Enemy ahead, to the right at 2 o’clock. Their distance from the Captain is estimated to be 2200 meters. There are around 200 soldiers.”

“Received. Alert us when they are 600 meters away.

“Enemy at the rear, 7 o’clock, 3300 meters away.”

“Received. Black Mamba, you take care of that.”

“Roger.”

“Black, how can you sense their distance accurately? Will you teach me how to do it?”

“You are asking about that again? Okay, I’ll teach you. First, you need to be confined in a cave for six months, with centipedes being your only source of food.”

“Mm, centipedes. If you eat a centipede, your hearing senses are heightened. Then what do you do?”

“You have to fight with a leopard.”

“That doesn’t make sense. And then?”

“You need to be beaten by a staff until you are on the brink of death.”

“You f****** bastard, go f*** yourself.”

“But it’s true!”

“Leave it, you bastard. If you don’t want to teach me, just tell me so. Why isn’t there a single honest bone in you?”

Bang!

Before Emil could finish complaining, an eruption echoed from the back. It was the sound of a grenade launcher.

Following that, there was the sound of a Dragunov.

“Black, they’ve started!” Emil shouted in surprise.

“I know, you don’t have to tell me. Don’t these bastards sleep?”

“It’s the sound of a heavy mortar. Will it be okay?” Emil continued, worried.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Crash!

The sound of loud explosions drowned the sound of gunshots. Bright fire streamed across the darkness. The battle of the grenade launchers, RPGs, and machine guns had begun.

Mike looked into his scope with blood-shot eyes.

His new partner, Mouris, was in charge of the Claymore mine and RPG. Meanwhile, Mike had settled into a sniping position to fill in Black Mamba’s empty spot.

Clang!

The green shadow that entered into the view of his scope crumpled to the ground.

A 700-meter long-distance shot took time to target precisely. Another target escaped after Mike had managed to get him in his scope carefully. It wasn’t easy.

“Damn, Mike’s a monster.”

Black Mamba was someone who shot his targets like dominoes at 800 meters. He didn’t like Mike, but he had to admit that his abilities were respectable. Mike carefully began to erase the visible enemies one by one.

Black Mamba became anxious.

The enemies who were moving near the rear were approaching cautiously and slowly. His plan to wipe out this invading team and head over to assist the front was ruined.

“Why are those bastards so slow?”

Emil, who couldn’t hold back any longer, took up the Minimi and aimed. Black Mamba pressed down Emil’s hand.

“Wait. They’re outside the shooting range.”

A Minimi’s shooting range was 800 meters. The enemies were approaching from a 1000-meter point. It was possible to suppress them, but the distance was too far to kill.

Black Mamba clicked his tongue inwardly.

If the enemy commander had intended for the rear invasion to separate their forces, then it was commendable.

“They’ve entered the first tripwire zone.”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The mimes began to explode before Black Mamba finished his sentence. The first tripwire was placed at 600 meters, the second at 400 meters.

“Aaaaaaargh!”

The enemies’ first wave of soldiers attacked, and the mines exploded in a row.

“Jeez, those bastards have no imagination at all,” Emil said calmly.

The front was chaotic with the sounds of gunshots and explosions overlapping one another. Black Mamba trusted his Captain and his friends, so he continued to wait at the rear for the enemies.

“Launching flares. Wear night goggles.”

At Jang Shin’s transmission, all the mercenaries turned off their night view amplifiers at once.

An AN/PVS-5 was embedded with microchannels instead of electron tubes and amplified the light source by 20,000 times. If a flare was seen while the power remained on, the mercenaries risked becoming permanently blind.

This first generation of night goggles, made in the 1960s, was called the Starlight Scope because it relied on starlight.

The Starlight Scope, compared to the nighttime infrared googles, could be folded and were cheaper. On the other hand, if there was no light source around the user, their performance dropped tremendously.

The second generation of optical amplification night goggles didn’t just increase the speed of electrons but also increased their size and amplification. Thanks to that, a safe view could be procured even during starless nights. It had shaken off the nickname Starlight Scope.

Pssst- Bang!

The flare, shot by a mortar, shined like a million candles and brightened the desert for 70 seconds.

The enemies swarmed forward like ants under the trailing, falling light.

A smile appeared at the corners of Ahmud’s mouth.

Even if they were strong bastards, they were still the size of a squadron. He had 265 people on his side. He didn’t need to use Lanchester’s law as a reason for why they’d be victorious, because there was already an overwhelming difference in the number of soldiers between the two sides to guarantee this.

The difference in their numbers revealed their power as time passed. All of his forty close subordinates had been sent to attack the rear. The front assault group consisted of soldiers that other armies had provided for him. Even if they were all slaughtered, he would regain Habib’s trust as long as he got the Ratel bastards.

If the difference in size was as significant as he predicted, not even their strongest soldier would be a worthy opponent for them. There was nothing to fear, even if the Ratel team was like a large lion. Once surrounded by hyenas, even a male lion was left as bones.

“Their numbers are small. Supervising unit, push forward!” Ahmud shouted with confidence.

“There are many of them.”

That was all the Captain had to say after checking the enemies’ attack route.

Black Mamba had said 200, so there had to be at least 200 soldiers. He could only hope that the rear attackers would be killed quickly.

The BTR began to break the 12.7 mm heavy machine guns. When three worked together at once, their power was immense. The rock the Captain was hiding near cracked and shattered.

“Burimer, Jang Shin, get the BTR!”

The Captain, whose back was battered by the shattered rock, began to holler. There was no need for orders.

Jang Shin was already assembling the warhead. He was no longer a rookie. He had become a war veteran who had participated in battles that had him straddling the border between life and death several times. Therefore, he was capable of reading the flow of a battle.

Jang Shin holstered the 84 mm recoilless gun on his shoulder. The Panzerfaust had been made 30 years ago but was remodeled two times. The one he had in his hands was the M2CG, which had been developed in 1970.