Yes, the memories belonging to this body were steadily coming back. Too many memories of another person had flooded in at once, and even Yu Lian's mental fortitude couldn't stop him from blanking out briefly. Still, it looked a lot like a stress response caused by brain trauma, so it was no wonder everyone was so worried.
"Do you remember how you got hurt? What happened before?" Ina asked urgently.
"I... Mm, I went to rescue a soldier who'd been caught waist-deep in a sinkhole, and then I was ambushed," Yu Lian said slowly.
Only then did Ina relax. But a moment later, she said with lingering fear, "That thing was terrifying. It tore open the back of your powered armor in one go. If the lieutenant hadn't thrown a shock grenade at it, you would've... That was too close!"
Yeah! How could it not have been close? The thing that had caught that poor bastard by the lower half was clearly a tank bug hiding in a sand pit. And the one that ambushed me had to be a thorn serpent king! Even with all the corners cut on the AS40's armor, ordinary spitter bugs and zerglings couldn't break through with a single hit.
So the reason my whole body hurt just now, like even my spine had snapped, was probably not just because I'd been ambushed by a bug. It also included the "boom" from your grenade, didn't it?
At that thought, Yu Lian couldn't help shooting Lieutenant Monderson a distinctly unfriendly look. The latter hastily gave him a somewhat awkward smile.
Your image as a badass swordmaster from a few minutes ago just shattered, you know.
And another thing: I'd known that being called a "warrant officer" meant you were an elite bureaucrat-track graduate of a military academy, but I hadn't expected you to be this elite. Central Defense University was the top dog among the country's military academies, wasn't it? In some ways, it was harder to get into than Qingbei or Harvard in my previous life—no, the life before that. It only admitted elite scholars who excelled at both academics and martial arts.
Since the academy's headquarters were in Guanghan City, a lunar metropolis, its graduates were nicknamed "Moon People" by the military. They were elite talents coveted by every branch of the armed forces.
And the so-called Strategic Studies Department was the most elite and hardest-to-enter program at this top university. Its graduates were naturally the elite of the elite, known as the "cradle of admirals."
Yes, they were all supposedly part of the "elite bureaucrat track," but even within that class, there was a hierarchy. Graduates of other academies or departments rode the orbital elevator to promotion, while Strategic Studies graduates went straight through the Star Gate. The average retirement rank for graduates of other military academies was colonel—that was supposedly backed by statistical surveys—but graduates from here felt embarrassed to attend reunions if they hadn't made general and earned the title "Your Excellency" by forty.
And the 830th graduating class? Could it be the same 830th class from later history?
And the Sandmen army besieging Tulong Harbor? Commander Bonaparte?
Yes, this had to be the "Tulong Harbor Incident" that made it into later history textbooks. It had happened in November of Galactic Common Era 829. The chain of events it sparked had ultimately caused the Blue Star Commonwealth to lose control of the Star Gate and its colonies in the Andromeda Galaxy.
As for Commander Bonaparte... A tall, upright, and strikingly handsome figure soon rose in Yu Lian's memory.
Lieutenant Colonel Eleanor Bonaparte came from a famous military family. Her ancestors had produced six generals and one marshal over three generations, and she, like Yu Lian, had graduated from the Strategic Studies Department. When Yu Lian had first enrolled, Senior Eleanor had already been in her final year. She later graduated at the top of her class.
Her education, ability, and connections were all impeccable, so her prospects were obvious. It had been a little over three years since graduation, and she was already a lieutenant colonel. No one doubted that she'd become a general before thirty—though it had happened before in history, it had only ever happened during wartime.
Senior Eleanor was currently in Tulong City, serving as chief of staff for the New Jade Gate garrison. In other words, she was trapped in the city by the Sandmen army too.
Mm, I think the two of us got along pretty well. When I first arrived, she even treated me to charcoal-grilled marmot...
Yu Lian suddenly remembered too much, and his head hurt even more. He wanted to sort through some of the information buried in all those jumbled memories, but he simply didn't have the time right now.
"We can't stay here!" Yu Lian said gravely.
You just said that a moment ago, sir. Lieutenant Monderson very much wanted to say it.
"What I mean is..."
"Lieutenant! Look down the mountain!" the sentry at the entrance shouted.
"Quiet!" Yu Lian snapped in a low voice.
The sentry shuddered and didn't say another word.
Everyone present couldn't help looking toward Lieutenant Monderson, but he only spread his hands, wearing an expression of helpless acceptance that seemed to say, "See? Here we go. This is just normal Moon Person behavior."
Yu Lian didn't have time to care what everyone thought. Dragging his freshly pinned-together lower half behind him, he crawled to the entrance. Down on the plain, he saw dozens more bugs gathering. Their claws scraped and scrabbled across the ground as they searched for something, then slowly crept in this direction.
There were only dozens of them, but they had a far more imposing presence than the hyena-like zerglings from before.
Just as I thought... Yu Lian pressed his lips together.
Those were raptor bugs, also known as warrior bugs—the sort of combat organism that could go toe-to-toe with mechanized infantry armed to the teeth. I mean well-equipped, highly trained soldiers from the Imperial or Alliance Marine Corps, not the hopelessly weak rabble in the Commonwealth garrison.
As for the thorn serpent king, it was certainly hiding among the warrior bugs. It was a lord bug that had evolved a measure of intelligence. The intelligence was single-minded, but it was still enough to serve as a squad leader for the bug army.
Look at them pressing their feelers against the ground, groping around like dogs. It was only a matter of time before they found us.
In fact, their sense of smell and hearing were more than an order of magnitude better than a dog's.
Was this really necessary? Such a huge show of force? Were they here to avenge the arrow I'd shot earlier? I hadn't heard that the bug swarm cared about comradeship.
Oh? Maybe... Yu Lian glanced at Ina, whose face was just as grave, and immediately guessed what was going on.
To the bug swarm, someone like Sergeant Major Ina was probably like a huge, glowing gold nugget on the move.
So the bugs were actually after Ina? Yu Lian looked at the sergeant major and decided not to tell her just yet. Talk too freely about the future, and there was a good chance you'd be called crazy. Yu Lian had learned that the hard way in his previous life.
The memories belonging to this body were still jumbled. Everything else could wait; they had to deal with these hunters first.
"Have Sergeant Baka and Sergeant Youyou come back yet?"
"I'm here, I'm here, sir." The Black sergeant, who had returned at some point, came trotting over.
"How's the situation?"
"There really is a path farther in that leads to the other side of the mountain. Mm, it's just not an easy one."
"It's passable, if a bit difficult," Sergeant Baka said in his deep voice. Unlike the ferocious fighter he'd been in battle, the bear-man sergeant was a calm, taciturn sort.
Good. If even he could get through, then the others could manage too. Yu Lian thought, then asked, "Sir, how many shock grenades do we have left?"
As the name suggested, shock grenades were meant to "shock." They weren't proper lethal weapons, of course, but they were a good choice against the local natives of New Jade Gate—the unruly Sandmen.
But could these things work against the large bugs below, which looked even harder to deal with? The lieutenant had his doubts, but still looked to Ina.
"I have three, the lieutenant has two, and Second Lieutenant Russo hasn't used any of his, so that's five more," the sergeant major said. "As for you..."
Shock grenades were fairly bulky. The few armored people present could carry them, but making the unarmored grunts carry such heavy things would be inhumane.
"That'll do." Yu Lian worked it out. "Go get the stretcher, and take the batteries out of my ruined armor!"
"What are you going to do? Make a booby trap? Why not use ordinary grenades?"
"Our Type 20 infantry grenades are meant to scare unarmored Sandmen. Their power is mediocre at best. They probably couldn't even collapse this lousy cave, let alone pierce the shells of those giant bugs. You've all seen how tough they are, right? But with the powered exoskeleton batteries and a certain number of shock grenades, I can rig up an impact bomb! It should be able to cause internal damage directly to the tissue beneath their shells."
"That does sound like how it works... But you can really do that? Moon Person—no, Warrant Officer, weren't you in the Strategic Studies Department?"
"Well, sir, the Strategic Studies Department teaches you a little bit of everything, and makes you an expert in nothing. That's how you become a leader!" Yu Lian replied matter-of-factly.
Lieutenant Monderson, who was more than twice Yu Lian's age, felt a little stung. Then he remembered that once the other man graduated, he'd have to call him "sir" himself in three to five years at most. He wasn't sure whether to feel resigned or even more miserable.
"I heard the Defense University only taught you elite bureaucrats how to cut Alliance Andes beef with Imperial crystal knives and eat it with starfish sauce. I never heard they taught you how to make bombs," Ina said out of the blue.
Lieutenant Monderson turned pale and hurriedly signaled to the sergeant major with his eyes. But she didn't notice at all and went on, "Warrant Officer, you must've learned this trick somewhere else, right?"
From you, obviously. From all those militia training videos you starred in yourself. Yu Lian muttered to himself.
Fortunately, she'd only asked in passing and didn't intend to press the matter, so Yu Lian glossed over that part with an awkward, meaningless laugh. He armed all the shock grenades, tied them together in a row, then took the battery and started tinkering. His movements were so practiced that he looked like a habitual criminal who regularly used improvised bombs to rob banks and hijack spaceships. Everyone stared, momentarily stunned. They felt that this man's style was growing ever less like the peerless "Moon Person" they'd imagined.
"Even so, the blast radius is limited. We'll have to wait until they're inside the cave to set it off. Even if it doesn't kill them, the collapsing cave will bury them!"
Lieutenant Monderson felt that, even though he still needed Yu Lian's help, he had to say something now. Otherwise, he'd be unable to maintain his authority as the commanding officer. So he said, "Well, Warrant Officer, your skill is certainly impressive, but isn't this a little unnecessary? If we stay in this cave, those creatures might not..."
He hadn't finished speaking when a shrill cry rang out from the bug swarm far below. The monstrous bugs, all bristling with claws and fangs, turned in perfect unison and rushed toward them at speeds exceeding fifty kilometers per hour.
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