Chapter 691 07.690: “Girls in War”

“Prisoner Hood! Are you okay?”

Just as Farida was suffering from a huge visual and mental shock and standing there in a daze, she heard a reassuring and familiar voice coming from above the crater, which calmed her down a little.

She raised her head and looked at Louise who was extending her hand to her. Farida sniffed with emotion and tried to calm herself down.

“Thank you, I’m fine.” She thanked Louise through the gas mask with a slightly nasal tone.

The gas mask hid her expression, and Louise, alert to artillery fire and incoming bullets, was unaware of the complex emotions behind the nasal tone.

Farida grabbed Louise’s hand and struggled to climb out of the crater, breathing heavily.

She had been wading in the corpse water, her whole body was wet, and her half-soaked clothes were sticking to her body, making every part of her body extremely uncomfortable, but at this moment, she put all these discomforts behind her.

She had only one thought in mind, and that was to plunge the Power Sword into the traitor’s chest and make them pay a heavy price for everything they had caused and all the pain they had experienced!
“We’re almost there.” Louise’s leggings were covered in mud, but she didn’t care at all. All her attention was focused on how to cross the last hundred meters of this no-man’s land.

Through the transparent lenses, Farida gazed into her bright eyes, which still sparkled with courage and determination as always.

This made Farida feel a little respect for Louise in her heart.

[Well, although we are rivals, I don’t know what my rival has experienced in Cadia and on the way from Cadia to Abyssal Port… I may have underestimated her.] She thought silently.

[Perhaps, she is worthy of Horatio?]
But Farida quickly put these issues aside because there were more urgent things to worry about.

“Can you still charge? Military Supervisor Hood.” Louise retracted her attention and looked at the Military Supervisor who was kneeling beside the pile of corpses and taking a rest under cover.

“No problem, Captain Louise.” Farida’s smile under the mask was filled with a hint of stubbornness and recognition of Louise from deep within her heart. “Let’s plan a route and rush over.”

Suddenly, a red marking light appeared in front of Farida and Louise at the same time.

The light planned an attack route for them and the grenadiers who were quickly gathering, and this route happened to lead to the blind spot of the bunker’s firing hole.

Now, the Chaos rebels on the position have been suppressed by artillery fire, and the assault troops are already close to the blind spot of the bunker on the slope.

Farida and Louise looked at each other and said in unison: “Horatio?!”

At this time, underground in the no-man’s land.

“Great, they saw it.” Horatio breathed a sigh of relief, his tense nerves finally relaxed a little. He continued to squat, crawling forward with full concentration.

In fact, ever since Louise and Farida led the grenadiers to charge and entered the range of his bird’s-eye view, he had been paying close attention to their actions and coordinating artillery cover for them from time to time.

That’s right, the Krieg artillery company’s quick response was not initiated after hearing Louise’s communication, but they had already begun calibrating the trajectory when they received Horatio’s beacon, so there was such rapid artillery cover and slow-moving barrage.

“What did you say, Commander?” Staff Officer Clausewitz, who was following Horatio, asked in confusion.

“No, nothing. I think we should be there soon.” Horatio slowly withdrew his attention from the bird’s-eye view. He was relieved to withdraw his sight because Louise had organized the grenadiers to throw smoke bombs on the route he marked.

The smoke formed a thick curtain for the grenadiers, covering their attack.

They successfully broke through the last 100 meters and threw melta cluster grenades at the bunker in the blind spot below it, successfully eliminating this difficult firepower point.

Then, the grenadiers took out their engineering shovels and tactical knives, first cleared the trench with grenades, and then jumped into the trench.

Louise and Farida also entered the trenches under the protection of the grenadiers and engaged in close combat with the enemy. As elites who had been trained in the Imperial Navy for a long time, Horatio knew the strength of the two, who were better at close combat.

It can be said that, apart from the Astartes Brothers, among the common combat forces of the Empire, no one is more proficient in close combat than the Imperial Navy!
Therefore, when they led the regimental guards and grenadiers across the no-man’s land and engaged in fierce close combat with the enemy, Horatio felt more at ease.

Despite this, he would still pay attention to the developments on the battlefield from time to time.

However, the staff officers did a great job of coordinating, and the dispatch of various units was almost accurate to the second.

He was also very curious about how the Krieg people were able to achieve such highly unified actions without much verbal communication.

Bang! The explosion of the shell after it hit the ground caused the underground passage to shake violently, and the people inside also trembled.

Horatio felt as though he were wriggling in the ravaged, indigested intestines of some gigantic living creature that seemed to be starving for blood and flesh.

“We’re almost there. Last 50 meters.” Through the bird’s-eye view, Horatio can compare the relative position on the ground and accurately analyze his own location.

Suddenly, he heard the sound of digging coming from the soil next door.

“Shh! Stop!” He immediately lowered his voice and signaled the people around him to stop.

Everyone stopped at the same time, and the tunnel suddenly became silent, so quiet that they could hear each other’s breathing.

Horatio pressed his ear against the wooden board on the inner wall of the tunnel and heard the digging sound getting closer and closer. After careful listening, it seemed to be coming from the opposite side.

[Is this the enemy digging trenches towards our position?] Horatio continued to listen to the enemy’s movements, trying to determine the enemy’s intentions.

Currently, there are not many people left guarding the position of the 1313th Infantry Regiment, and each unit is attacking in an orderly manner in batches.

If the enemy digs a tunnel and attacks our position at this time, it will seriously undermine the offensive plan and may even lead to a major change of position.

“We have to find a way to intercept them.” Horatio turned his head and whispered to the staff officer behind him. The staff officer immediately turned around and whispered a reminder to the long line of soldiers behind him.

Horatio took out the copper listening device he had received from Old Man Joe from his waist, pointed it firmly against the wall, and listened carefully to the noise coming from next door.

“32 degrees port relative,” Horatio said instinctively.

“What?” Staff Officer Clausewitz didn’t react for a moment.

“Direction of half past nine!” Horatio changed the direction description to one that was more in line with the current environment.

Suddenly, his eyes widened and he took a deep breath.

“They’re coming towards us!”

Swish! Swish! The enemy seemed unaware that the Krieg had already dug a tunnel, and they were digging openly under no man’s land, making a lot of noise, much louder than the noise they made when they approached the position that night.

Of course, this is also due to the fact that the Kriegs have accumulated sufficient excellent experience in earthwork excavation during the hundreds of years of underground offensive and defensive battles on their home planet, which allows these outstanding engineers to dig tunnels so efficiently and quietly to the feet of the enemy.

The noise got closer and closer until a shovel dug through the soil, and the gray-black shovel half stuck in front of Horatio, and some loose soil fell on the surface of his combat boots.

(End of this chapter)