Chapter 102 The Inevitable Sacrifice

"Let's go! Fuel room!"

Seeing that the core force of the orcs at the scene had been completely wiped out and the remaining remnants of the defeated army had been defeated, Calvin said to the Grey Knights who were finishing up the work at the scene.

He took the lead and walked towards the passage in front of the engine room. The fuel room was less than one kilometer away from here.

"Call the bridge."

Calvin used the communicator in his hand to contact the command center on the bridge.

"Got it, please go."

"Mark the hidden ammunition storage point on the way from my current position to the fuel room. My soldiers need to replenish ammunition."

"Got it, the information will start now."

The Grey Knights who had finished their formation just caught up with Calvin at this time.

After hearing the content of his communication with the command center, the Grey Knights spontaneously began to count their ammunition base while marching.

The entire Grey Knights' queue began to automatically adjust while marching.

The servo system inside the power armor always pays attention to the status of these Emperor Angels.

Because the excitement of adrenaline secreted in the body during the battle had just passed, trace elements and electrolytes were spontaneously transferred from the reserve system in the power armor and injected into the bodies of the Grey Knights.

They did not have time to repair like the mortal troops, so it was natural to use the wartime reserves in the power armor.

When passing through the mortals' position defense line, these heavy armored giants with a height of more than 2.5 meters were almost the same as before the war.

The sense of power and security brought by their sturdy bodies under the silver-gray power armor made these mortal warriors who had just been rescued from the orcs full of pride and confidence in the empire.

Calvin did not stop his steps. As he walked, he said to the captain who had recovered:

"Leave enough people to be on guard, and the rest of the people will build a backup defense line 200 meters back based on the terrain. The battle is not over yet. You have no right to relax until we clear the entire black ship."

"I will obey the order!"

The young captain, who was also excited, lowered his head to show his obedience.

When he looked up, the figures of the Grey Knights had disappeared in the heavy metal corridor.

As they marched, the Grey Knights took the time to familiarize themselves with the general terrain of the battlefield they were about to arrive at from their respective data terminals.

The data transmission from the bridge had arrived, and the terrain and general situation of the fuel room had been fully three-dimensionally imaged in their helmet eyepieces.

The battle terrain here was slightly better for the defenders than the engine room.

At least there was no maintenance passage, a corridor prepared for the passage of large equipment, which gave the defenders a headache.

The only large material transportation passage was behind the defenders in the direction of the engine room, and Calvin and others came from there.

In addition to a few narrow passages, there was only one main road to attack the orcs.

But this passage, which was less than 10 meters wide but 200 meters long, was really not conducive to the attacking orcs.

They could smell the malicious intent of the defenders just from the placement of several twin laser guns at the end of the passage.

After a few simple attempts at attack, the orcs who left more than a hundred corpses in the passage turned to the chiseling tactic.

On the front passage, the orcs' suppressive firepower has been continuing, and the charge launched by the heavy equipment, Gu Juji, is still continuing.

But the orcs' attack is no longer limited to the front battlefield. The cabins on both sides of the passage covered by the position began to be blown up one by one.

They are betting that the troops on the black ship must be insufficient, and the reinforcements will not arrive for a while.

This kind of low-loss but high-time-cost blasting raid tactics has room for play.

And once such a tactic is implemented in place, what awaits the defenders is a death charge that cannot be stopped after approaching a sufficient distance.

That is absolutely unbearable for the defenders of this mere company and the position composed of these heavy weapons.

As the walls of the rooms behind the bulkheads on both sides were approached by the sound of explosions again and again, the faces of the officers of the defending army began to become serious.

Retreat? Behind this intersection is the large passage just mentioned, which is not safe at all.

And the heavy firepower already deployed here, such as heavy logging guns, is easy to deal with.

However, it is not realistic to transfer the automatic turrets that have been turned on and debugged to the rear as a whole.

What to do? The captain looked at the political commissar and several sergeants around him who could not make up their minds.

If the reinforcements can arrive on time, then the counter-penetration will not be very necessary.

And if the reinforcements cannot arrive on time, this bloody and tragic tactical action will buy precious time for the entire company to complete the task.

Sacrifice is inevitable, but sacrifice must be meaningful.

This is the captain's dilemma.

The sergeants also understood the captain's concerns, and they did not let the political commissar force the company commander into a passive position first.

The sergeants first proposed the tactic that the captain knew, the political commissar knew, and they also knew, but no one was willing to mention it actively.

"Counter-penetration, prepare for hand-to-hand combat."

One of the sergeants said calmly, and the other sergeants also agreed with this in silence.

"Okay..." The captain said with a sigh.

The captain did not need to make any specific arrangements for what happened next. The soldiers, who had already conducted many exercises on the ship, were well aware of the key points of this tactic.

The sergeant major who returned to his own position began to mobilize his manpower and gathered the most combat-effective veterans in his hands.

The recruits looked a little confused as they watched the squad leaders who were lying next to them pick up the grenades and leave silently.

The remaining backbone comforted the recruits, but their eyes as they looked at the squad leaders leaving were also full of worry.

The veterans who have served on the ship all year round can be said to be very familiar with the various tactical regulations for combat inside the ship.

Therefore, they did not dare to put too much hope in whether the departing squad leaders and veterans could return safely.

But for the sake of the company's morale and the maintenance of the entire front, they could only choose to remain silent.

It is these squad leaders who are leaving now, and if necessary, they will be obliged to do so.

Counter-penetration is not a magical tactic in naval battles. In a sense, it is just a street fighting rule in the interstellar era.

The specific content is nothing more than launching a targeted counter-charge and counter-explosion when the opponent explodes and advances.

Thermal weapons are not ideal in this kind of close combat. On the contrary, cold weapons and flamethrowers are occasionally effective in such a cramped environment.

In a word: hand-to-hand combat and strangulation, hand-to-hand combat and suicide attacks. enough.

Even if there is a little hope, this tactic will not be placed on the desk of the commanders responsible for the execution of the tactics at the grassroots level.

But the situation of war is always not up to people's choice, especially this kind of defensive operation that inherently loses the initiative.

In this forced defensive operation, the precious defensive flexibility of the entire front is obtained through this bloody method.

They had no choice.

The sergeants and veterans gathered on both sides of the front line, and some veterans with abundant supplies silently distributed the tobacco in their hands to the side.

In the swirling smoke, everyone waited quietly.

Waiting for the moment when they will use the weapons in their hands to pour out the anger in their hearts.

When the fault light of the cabin 50 meters nearest came on in the situation map from the direction of the bridge, the veterans knew:

The brutal back-cutting inevitably began.

At zero o'clock (standard coordinate time, based on the start of a specific combat time.), the first anti-penetration team of thirty people, led by two sergeants, opened the hatches forward from both sides of the position and groped forward.

After a delay of 5 minutes, the anti-penetration team engaged the enemy and repelled the first attack of the orcs with pre-planted bombs, resulting in zero casualties.

After a delay of 8 minutes, the second wave of attacks arrived. The team used flamethrowers to repel the second wave of attacks with zero casualties.

After a delay of 12 minutes, the team encountered the third charge led by the orc boss. The flamethrower team broke up and repelled the attack at the cost of 4 deaths.

After a delay of 15 minutes, the team that retreated to the third cabin from the bottom used grenades and engineer shovels as weapons. Under the leadership of the political commissar, they repelled the opponent's fourth attack, killing 10 people.

After a delay of 16 minutes, the second and final group of nine anti-penetration teams (including political commissars) arrived at the scene for support, led by the remaining two sergeants.

After a delay of 17 minutes, the anti-penetration team concentrated on a superior force and charged in the reverse direction, recapturing three cabins and killing 9 people (including the political commissar).

After a delay of 20 minutes, the last batch of high explosives remaining in the company was brought by the team and used to repel a wave of orc charges.

The fighting time up to this point, including the previous exploratory battle, has only passed a short hour.

In the temporary command post in the center of the position, the only remaining captain in the command team, the company commander, was smoking the tobacco in his hand.

He walked back and forth quietly but anxiously around the table with the map.

Explosives for fixed-point blasting on the gate behind have been placed.

Just waiting for his order, the passage leading to the fuel chamber will collapse accurately with the exquisite skills of the demolition sergeant.

The number of casualties no longer mattered at this moment. He only cared about how long his troops could withstand it.

What he was more concerned about was whether what sounded in his ears the next moment was the roar of the orcs on both sides of the position, or the footsteps of the reinforcements behind him.

The former's voice will make him make up his mind to bury the entire passage and his comrades here;

The sound of the latter would make him grieve for the piercing teams he had sent out, who might have saved themselves from dying...

Just when he was struggling with this, the heavy footsteps of the Gray Knights behind him made him raise his head instantly.

He didn't look behind him.

The captain's tearful eyes just looked upward, looking through the fabric of the tent toward the sky.

There, there are their comrades who have returned to the throne...

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