Chapter 201: Heavy Machine Gun
Seeing the large porcupines in the distance, Zhang Xiao Qiang’s hands trembled slightly, all of their original backup plans were run aground. With the long distance monsters, the creatures were able to suppress the gun fires and concentrate their attacks.
Six Combat Team members were already forced to stand down due to injuries, this was only their first round, but seeing the monsters with the dense spikes still on their backs, Zhang Xiao Qiang knew that it was not their last.
Including the three elites who had died outside the wall, there were a total of 9 men in the team that Zhang Xiao Qiang who were unable to wield weapons and fight. In total, he had brought out 50 men, leaving Zhang Huai An with only 10 odd men to defend the base. This also meant that Zhang Xiao Qiang had brought out 80% of the force, and up to date, he had already lost 10% of the men with another 10% no longer able to fight.
As for the remaining 40 men, it was not enough for them to just defend the wall against the onslaught of rats and long distance attacks, they had to destroy and put an end to the uncountable rats. Only by doing so would Zhang Xiao Qiang be able to return to the arsenal and retrieve the ammunition and weapons. The situation was dire and Zhang Xiao Qiang figured that he and 80% of the combat team were forced to stay in the prison.
The slow-moving porcupine-like creatures seemed to have received some sort of order, they stopped their swollen bodies in unison and stooped down. Observing their strange actions, Zhang Xiao Qiang immediately dropped his binoculars and shouted to his back: “TAKE COVER…..”
After shouting, he immediately turned and jumped into the stairwell and hid his body behind the thick cement wall. The other members immediately dropped the empty ammunition crates and ran in as well. Three ran in with his Type-81 AR and squatted beside Zhang Xiao Qiang, occasionally raising the rifle and firing out….
“Shua shua shua….” the familiar sounds came out again. Zhang Xiao Qiang grabbed Three by his clothes and pulled him in. Due to Zhang Xiao Qiang’s large exertion of force, Three was flung and fell into a pool of blood.
“Ding ding….” Countless spikes struck the wall, a few even penetrated through the small opening and shot into the interior. The place where Three was at prior to being pulled down was already covered with countless spikes.
Seeing the wall where he was previously at being thinned, Three shuddered in fear, he was almost the sixth dead member. Upon thinking of what Zhang Xiao Qiang did, he looked towards him with gratitude and thanked him.
Zhang Xiao Qiang did not have the time to look at him in the eyes. He took up a Type-81 AR leaning on the wall and slowly stood up. He took aim towards the large porcupines and took fire.
The rifle throbbed intensely on his shoulder, his right cheek was also able to feel the intense recoil, the muzzle of the rifle spewed out green flames continuously as bullets slowly reached the large target. The weird creature trembled upon being shot at, the dense spikes on its body broke and fell all around it.
A full magazine of 30 rounds was emptied on the target, but the creature merely stopped trembling after the firing stop and gently shook its body, throwing off the broken spikes. After that, it looked as though it had received some order as it stopped shaking and stooped down once more…..
“TAKE COVER….” Zhang Xiao Qiang shouted out once more and jumped back in. All of the other members routinely stopped their fires and hid. Three to four seconds later, another wave of concentrated spikes flew in.
When the sounds of the spikes colliding into the wall stopped, Zhang Xiao Qiang retrieved a full magazine from the ammunition crate and reloaded. He led everyone out to continue firing, where the combat team members aimed and fired at the wall while Zhang Xiao Qiang aimed at the creature that he had shot previously.
After emptying another magazine, Zhang Xiao Qiang helplessly realized that the Type-81 AR’s 7.62mm bullets were useless against the creature. Aside from breaking the spikes on its back, it did no damage to the creature, making it feel as though he was using the rifle to tickle the creature.
The interval at which the creatures shot their spikes was not very fast, allowing Zhang Xiao Qiang to estimate the duration of their ‘reloads’, which was roughly a minute and a half to two minutes. Furthermore, every time they shot, they had to stoop their body downwards, as long as there was an early warning, the combat team members would have time to dodge and prevent further injuries.
But these creatures did not care whether or not they were on target, they merely repeated the motion of stooping down and taking fire, as though they were telling Zhang Xiao Qiang, “I can’t kill you, but I can irritate you to death”.
Their suppressive fires were of some use, at least the combat team members had to take the time to avoid their spikes, lowering the efficiency of their fires. Without the continuous suppression of the Type-81 ARs, the mountain of rats formed even faster. Although the suppressive fires from the rifles would come on after every minute or so, the speed at which the rats were forming the mountain was able to slightly overcome their fires.
Time had passed and it was already late afternoon, Zhang Xiao Qiang and the combat team members were firing nonstop, without any idea of how many rats were there. Zhang Xiao Qiang started to worry, no one knew what other creatures aside from the rats and long-range porcupines were there to suddenly ambush them.
He unloaded an empty magazine and grasped for another but realized that there were no longer any loaded magazines. The ammunition crate by his feet was already emptied out and the magazines inside were all the empty ones that he had thrown with countless empty bronze shells.
He grabbed an empty magazine and quickly reloaded it with bullets, his eyes constantly moving around trying to look for an idea. If they could turn the tide, it would be the best possible outcome, if they could not, he had to look for a direction to break out.
Suddenly, he spied onto the Type-53 7.62mm HMG at the bottom of the watchtower from the corner of his eyes. The dense plate installed on it made his heart stir. The current issue was that there were no suppressive fires on the rats because of the long-range porcupine-rats. If we install the Type-53 HMG on top and use the ammunition crates to block off its two sides and use the plate to protect the top, won’t that be a completely sealed and safe machine gun fort?
Zhang Xiao Qiang recalled the rusted heavy machine gun on the workstation inside the arsenal, unsure of whether he had the capability of restoring it after dismantling it. Taking one step back, if it could be dismantled, it could be restored. But what if there were additional parts that he did not know of? Zhang Xiao Qiang knew and experienced this before where he dismantled toys when he was young. From what he knew, everything that he touched would never be restored to normal again.
It was the third Type-53 HMG that Zhang Xiao Qiang was dismantling. Somehow, he entered into a state of mind as that of surgeons in an operation. Inside the arsenal, Wang Chong, Shangguan Qiao Yun, and two other injured members held onto two torchlights each and shone the light for him.
Under the bright lights, Zhang Xiao Qiang looked at the machine gun components with perspiration all over his head. He greased all of the components once, then carefully cleaned and inspected the gun barrel once. Components were components, but Zhang Xiao Qiang was unable to reassemble them back. In his mind, he deeply regretted not bringing Wang Le out.
If Wang le was here, wouldn’t we have already succeeded with these things?