Chapter 124: Fragrance of Rebellion (4)
Seizing the absence of main gun fire, the upstream assault boats closed in rapidly. The patrol ship Luo Zhou tried to fend them off with its port-side secondary weapons, but no amount of effort could compensate for the silence of its primary cannons. Amid the chaos, the thunderbolt batteries sporadically demonstrated they were still operational. Thwump! Each barrage of shotgun-like scatter shot sent tiny orange embers blooming across the hulls of the patrol ship and Becklux, while pale splashes erupted over the flowing river.
The Number 2 flight and below focused on suppressing the batteries, but the thickening gun smoke made it nearly impossible to pinpoint their positions with the naked eye. Cannons using black powder doubled as high-performance smoke generators. The dense, spreading haze was a boon even for the ability users poised to leap into the river. The original plan had likely been to degrade the patrol ship's engagement capability with thunderbolt scatter shot, draw its attention with a boat feint, then have another wave of ability users dive from the riverbank and swim the shortest route.
The sequence had gone haywire, but the enemy still had fight left in them. Rage at inequality, greed for gold, the madness of class revolution, and the chemical haze of drugs—all melted into a single molten will to fight. Perhaps some had relatives held hostage, or faced equivalent threats of reprisal.
Becklux's antenna mast was sheared off by scatter shot. No long-range comms until emergency repairs. But repairs couldn't start until the shelling stopped.
I banked the flagship chopper toward the southern riverbank airspace.
"I'll suppress the batteries! Number 2 through 4 flights, support the patrol ship and block the boat flotilla! The rest of you, stop those jumping into the river!"
The boats pouring into the broad channel were harder to intercept than in narrow waters. Even with magic barriers absent, three helicopters flying cautiously might not suffice. But we had to delay the underwater infiltrators from the shore as much as possible, so splitting off more birds wasn't feasible.
Thud-thud-thud-thud! The grenades I unleashed detonated powerfully on the ground. I'd targeted the powder kegs stacked near the thunderbolt guns themselves. Each blast rippled transparent shockwaves through the black night, the roar and overpressure buffeting even my chopper. By the third empty mag, the Black Sea Party gunners couldn't take the cumulative damage; they abandoned their remaining guns and fled. A few stragglers staggered, unable to stand from combat stress. Continuous exposure to nearby blasts and shockwaves.
Grenade expenditure is brutal.
Still, my efforts prevented the patrol ship from losing control of its secondaries entirely. Especially the starboard machine gun turret—its integrated sights had been on the brink. One or two more scatter hits, and even manual fire would have been impossible. My powder-keg strikes had also churned up massive smoke clouds, easing the enemy ability users' river dives. A necessary trade-off to save time.
Aboard Becklux, antenna and radar swaps were underway. They'd started the moment they saw me dominate the beachhead. I repositioned the flagship to cover her.
Have the Black Sea Party decided to go all-in here?
Plan mangled or not, if they breached the river blockade, their ability users crossing over could smash the rear of the Chinese military-police forces blocking key bridges. Without giving any breathing room for defense or counterattack. Better to stubbornly push the botched plan than deal with the chaos of major force redeployment—that might be the Black Sea leadership's calculus.
Bam! Kyung-tae's big-bore rifle, reloaded, blew out the neck of an ability user clambering over Becklux's gunwale. A dark red stain bloomed on the white hull—like squashing a giant mosquito from afar. Black Sea ability users clutching axes or pickaxes, alternately hacking the hull to climb, recoiled in terror. Their superhuman strength made the ascent grotesquely swift, but Kyung-tae's sniping was swifter and truer. Not even those hooking grapples over rails and swarming up ropes were spared.
I grabbed the machine gun mount Kyung-tae had set up. You couldn't kill submerged foes with gunfire. Even heavy rounds lost energy rapidly penetrating water. A heavy MG struggled to take out a diver at one-meter depth. But my targets were those surfacing periodically to check position. The murky river made straight-line navigation impossible underwater.
Bam-bam-bam! The recoil jolted my hands as a crown of scalp shattered just breaking the surface. It bobbed, then sank gurgling as water flooded the throat. From our vantage, few shots were easier. Too many heads popping up was the problem. Visually, it was like whack-a-mole with tracers and AP rounds. The tally of shattered skulls sinking rose by the moment. Dark red blooms unfurled amid the waves, diluting in the current.
Thanks to Becklux and Number 5 flight's suppressive fire on the banks, the number diving and lurking never overwhelmed me and Kyung-tae. A razor-edge balance, like a dam at spillway capacity.
Rumble! A massive water column erupted with a bass thrum. Ability users guarding the patrol ship hurled depth charges to block underwater incursions. Stunned fish bellies-up; many humans writhed, blood streaming from ears. Bubbles frothed from gaping mouths. Some never resurfaced—concussions and ruptured organs.
"Throw! Keep throwing!"
The handler's bellow. These anti-ability diver charges were lighter than standard anti-sub ones, but still dozens of kilos each. The patrol boat guards pooled their strength to hurl them nonstop.
What broke them was the threat surging from upstream. The motorboat assault had finally pierced the blockade line, unleashing full firepower. Inside the machine guns' minimum range, they crushed the patrol boats shadowing Luo Zhou with sheer mass.
Small patrol craft vanished into massive fireballs one after another. Rockets cooking off their depth charges.
Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat! Sailors hunkered behind steel rails on the forward deck and mast exchanged fire with the boats. Rails offered no more cover than a fire extinguisher; against ability users' heavy weapons, they were paper-thin. The aft deck had even less—fence-like rails punched through, so sailors crawled to minimize exposure. Relying on height advantage blind spots. No real counterfire possible like this.
Numbers 2 through 4 flights fought hard, but couldn't stem the blood soaking fore and aft decks. If they'd stacked sandbags like a beachhead, things might've been different.
And still, the machine guns stayed quiet. I couldn't believe it.
If no surface targets, redirect to shore suppression, right?
"Console! Notify 592! Redirect machine guns to riverbank suppression!"
The absurd reply: "They say they need ammo for air cover!"
What kind of bullshit... Fury boiled over; I bellowed.
"Tell them to cut the crap and do it! Then I can stick one more helo in close escort! Who's saving their asses right now?!"
Brain not turning fast enough? Green captain crumbling under real combat.
Can't just bail.
If Luo Zhou fell, Becklux would struggle to withdraw even after the fight. Lose freedom of movement, become a bystander to the main event.
My shout bore fruit: the machine gun turret swiveled toward the smoke-choked bank. The bursts were precise sniping, more than head-down suppression. High manual accuracy owed to thermal sights' infrared feed. Black Sea ability users wore thick sandbag vests pre-dive, but against rounds shredding APCs, personal armor was useless.
"Number 5, 6! Advance and cover the patrol ship!"
Losses hit the instant I issued it.
"Hit! Hit! Wounded aboard!"
Number 3 took a blind rocket, spewing black smoke and debris. Flight-capable luckily, but three bleeding in the trashed cabin. Straps snapped; ammo crates tumbled like wrecking balls. One smashed, spilling kilos of rounds everywhere. Damn. First casualties since Mexico.
"Number 3! Back to Becklux! Evac wounded priority! Number 9! Cover 3's retreat!"
Dropping altitude now was suicide. Kyung-tae laid down magic with his grenade launcher—five of six hits. Struck boats drifted or sank.
Swapping mags swiftly, he sounded baffled.
"What the hell is that..."
The ASW helo—dropping charges, strafing one moment—now circled close, "escorting" our Number 3's landing. But it descended under 100 meters, painting a fat target. Mistake or madness.
Bam-bam-bam-bam! My MG shredded a spear-thrower's torso diagonally. But the spear was airborne. barbed head tore the thinly armored helo skin like paper. Kevlar rope tethered to a boat.
Weeeeeng! Diverging courses tautened the line; the ASW engine screamed overload. As it slowed, rockets converged. Despite our cover fire, one streaked straight, slamming below the cockpit.
Kaboom! Flash from the cockpit. Cracked ballistic glass smeared viscous red. Copilot fought controls despite wounds, but hydraulics were gone. The helo spun down, nose-diving into the river. A rotor blade sheared off, skipping across the surface to embed in Becklux's hull.
A migraine bloomed. Utterly useless...
The enemy was flagging, but two helos lost in succession rallied them for a final push. Eavesdropping on their chatter below: huge bounties for seizing Public Security or Navy vessels.
Why no suicide runs?
A nagging question. With suicide boats, they'd have sunk or bottomed Luo Zhou by now, Becklux be damned. Divers could've slapped timed charges below the waterline. Far deadlier than boarding like a siege.
Plan to crew and use captured ships? Absurd. Navies are specialist crews; rabble seizing the bridge couldn't sail jack.
Not that suicide boats were all preemptively destroyed. I'd have seen them.
Most logical: avoided mass slaughter in tight waters. How many did my chain-reaction dominoes claim? One boom could've chained into disaster.
But something else was afoot.