The Prisoner-Dead

The Prisoner-Dead

The journey from the temporary camp to the Waste Mine Society took four and a half hours in total.

The elite Marines split into squads of five and spread out as the vanguard and scouts. Gu Hang led the main force of his Servitor battalion forward at a steady pace, with the victim, Patel, alongside him.

Halfway there, Gu Hang received a report from a Marine reconnaissance team. They had spotted a small transport convoy that apparently belonged to the Prisoner-Dead tribe.

Gu Hang authorized Yan Fangxu to lead the Marines and some Servitor soldiers in wiping them out and capturing as many alive as possible.

Captain Yan was an elite naval officer. A small task like this was a piece of cake for him, and everything went off without a hitch.

However, after Gu Hang heard the captives' testimony, his mood soured.

Gu Hang had Patel brought over and said to him, "Looks like these bandits never intended to let you people go."

Patel had also seen the transport convoy. His expression was furious. "That's right. They were hauling a huge amount of high explosives. There's enough to blow open the Waste Mine Society's gates—and even to collapse the mine and bury us all alive."

Gu Hang shook his head and added, "There's more. According to the information Captain Yan got from interrogating them, they'd already made a deal with the Greenskins in the High Wall Ruins. Your more than nine hundred people at the Waste Mine Society were all considered premium food, ready to be sold to those green beasts."

"What?!"

Patel knew the Prisoner-Dead, those wasteland bandits, were utterly hostile toward them, but he was still shocked by their cruelty.

"Green beasts" was a fitting description for those mutants. They weren't found only on Nuxiao Planet; they existed throughout the universe and were also called the "cancer of the universe."

They had no sexes. They reproduced through symbiotic spores shed from their bodies, which then "grew" out of the ground. Their food worked the same way.

In theory, they had no need to buy food. But the two things these green beasts loved most were fighting and eating the brains of intelligent beings. The former was in their nature; the latter was how they advanced their technology.

These beasts, grown from the earth, were primitive and savage at first, fighting with stone axes and wooden clubs. But once they'd eaten enough brains—and smart enough ones—their technology advanced rapidly. Iron weapons, guns and cannons, even the ability to travel between stars...

They loved war, and their instinct to destroy everything meant that the stronger they grew, the more they became a calamity that ravaged all in their path.

In theory, a species like this should be the enemy of all humanity. The Empire had indeed issued an extermination order against the Greenskins: kill them on sight, then purge the land to destroy their spores and ensure they couldn't grow back.

But... policy was one thing; enforcing it was another.

Nuxiao Planet couldn't even pay its taxes, its people couldn't feed themselves, and the factions on the planet were at odds with one another. The whole planet was a mess, and even the governor had been driven to grow his own crops... In such circumstances, it was hard to expect bandits like the Prisoner-Dead to care about the fate of all humanity.

But not only were they failing to fight the Greenskins, they were doing business with those man-eating beasts. That was intolerable.

Clearing out the Greenskins was something Gu Hang was determined to do.

Of course, not right now.

According to the captives' testimony, the Greenskin tribe in the so-called High Wall Ruins numbered in the thousands and had already evolved to the point of possessing automatic weapons. Their equipment wasn't far behind that of the humans on the planet. Gu Hang's current forces were nowhere near strong enough to wipe out those brutes.

Fortunately, the High Wall Ruins were quite far from here, so there was no need to worry about them for the moment.

The immediate priority was dealing with the wasteland raiders threatening the Waste Mine Society.

Gu Hang now had precise intelligence on them.

The Prisoner-Dead had set up a temporary camp four kilometers from the mine where the Waste Mine Society was based. They'd never imagined the people inside would dare come out and fight them in the open, so they hadn't bothered to build any defensive works.

"Great opportunity. We can launch a surprise attack! Our mortars will be very effective!" Yan Fangxu said excitedly.

"Fine. Let's do it."

After a brief rest, they covered the remaining two hours' worth of ground in just over an hour.

They had sped up because they were worried the transport convoy's long delay would alert the bandits that something was wrong.

After their rapid march, they still needed some time to rest before launching the attack.

The thirty elite Marine soldiers were fine, but the Servitors needed rest. They wouldn't complain of fatigue, but they did get tired, and fatigue reduced their combat effectiveness.

On Yan Fangxu's recommendation, the soldiers would set off again in forty-five minutes. An hour later, the mortar positions would open fire.

With the Prisoner-Dead camp now visible in the distance, Gu Hang patiently led the force through a rest. They ate nutrient paste, sat quietly to regain their strength, and set up the mortar positions...

He knew that their patience now would let them win the battle later.

Kaga was in an inexplicably foul mood.

These days, being a raider wasn't easy. They hadn't had a successful raid in quite a while, and their supplies were nearly exhausted. Food wasn't a problem; once they broke into the Waste Mine Society, they'd have plenty. Even if those miners didn't have much food stored up, there were hundreds of them. Butcher them and make jerky, and it would last a long time.

But damaged weapons and spent ammunition were hard to replace. The major factions weren't keen on doing business with raiders like them. Only the Greenskin tribes were willing. Their technology was unreliable, their weapons broke down constantly, and their ammunition often misfired. In the raiders' hands, their weapons were nowhere near as powerful as when the Greenskins used them themselves...

Still, it was better than nothing.

To be honest, Kaga didn't care for the ore the Waste Mine Society produced most. It was heavy, worthless, and hard to fence. But the nine hundred people in the mine were valuable. They could serve as food for his men, or be herded to the High Wall Ruins and sold in exchange for Greenskin weapons. What could be better?

People were a lot easier to herd than sheep.

For this reason, the Prisoner-Dead had practically thrown their whole force into the operation. Apart from a few old folks, women and children, and the men left to guard their home base, Kaga had brought out nearly all their main force—more than a hundred people.

The Waste Mine Society had plenty of people, but few guns. They weren't a threat. The main reason they'd survived so long in the wasteland was their favorable terrain. Kaga had personally scouted the mine, and it was truly easy to defend and hard to attack. The entrance was sealed tight with ore and metal, then closed from the inside with a heavy gate. There was no way to force it open by hand.

They'd tried blowing up the gate yesterday, but failed; the explosives weren't powerful enough. With no other choice, he'd sent a trusted man back to their base to bring more, including some of their most powerful concentrated explosives.

His patience had run out. If he couldn't trick those miners into opening the gate, then once the explosives arrived, he'd blow the damn thing open.

It was supposed to be taken care of today, so there was no need to rush, but Kaga still felt uneasy. Going by the schedule, his transport convoy should have returned by now. So why hadn't he heard a thing?

He'd already been urging his men to try contacting the transport convoy over the radio, but they hadn't been able to reach them.

That only made him more uneasy.

Half an hour ago, he'd sent out a squad to search along the route, but so far there'd been no word from them either. Even their radio had gone silent.

He was fully on alert now.

The strange turn of events filled him with fear and doubt.

People who weren't cautious had long since been buried in the wasteland, leaving nothing but bones behind.

He made up his mind to send out four or five squads to investigate. At the same time, he ordered the whole group to get ready to move out and scout the area themselves.

Just then, a subordinate came to report, "We've reached the transport convoy. They said they're on their way back and will be here soon."

Kaga's brow furrowed at once. "Why couldn't we reach them before?"

"They said their radio was acting up. They just got it working again, and they were worried we'd be concerned, so they sent word right away."

Kaga thought it over for a moment, then ordered, "Reply: 'You sons of bitches, did you fuck a zombie dog on the road or what? Why are you so damn slow? Get back here, now! If you're any later, we'll take half your loot!'"

After that, he hurried outside and yelled at the men getting ready. "Hurry, hurry! We're moving out now! You bastards, quit stuffing those few bullets of yours into your pockets! Take whatever you can carry and dump the rest! Move! Get ready to break out! Someone's got their eyes on us!"

The subordinate who'd just received his orders looked confused. He caught up with Kaga and asked, "Boss, I..."

"You what? Get your ass moving and spread the word! Then grab your gun and catch up with the others!"

"Why?" The kid was still standing there, stunned.

Kaga smacked him on the forehead. "Someone's definitely watching us! Maybe this'll fool them. If it doesn't, at least they'll kill you for being too slow!"

With that, he stopped paying attention to the idiot, took his gun, and called to his men to leave camp.

As soon as he reached the entrance, he heard a whistle from the sky.

His face turned green in an instant.

That was the sound of a shell!

"Get down!"

He dropped to the ground at once, cursing furiously. "Fuck! They're shelling us... Ptooey, ptooey... Don't let me get my hands on... Ptooey..."

The deafening explosions nearly drowned out his own voice. He could only curse and bluster, trying to vent his fear.

He'd guessed that someone was watching them. He'd even thought the worst might have happened—that they were already surrounded.

But he hadn't expected the people targeting them to have artillery!

Fortunately, he was lucky. His ears were ringing and his head was spinning, but he wasn't seriously hurt.

He pushed himself halfway up and looked around.

The artillery shelling them couldn't have been very large in caliber. It seemed to be just mortars or something similar. If they'd been heavy guns, a dozen shells landing close together in one barrage would have left no one in the camp alive.

Even so, the mortars had inflicted considerable damage on their crude camp, which had no solid defenses.

At a glance, at least twenty of his men were dead or missing limbs.

The rest were dazed by the explosions.

But now was clearly no time to stand around stunned. Staying here meant waiting to die.

He roared, "Move! Move! Get out of here!"

But at that very moment, gunfire rang out beyond the camp.

They really were surrounded! Infantry were following up after the bombardment!

The only good news was that the gunfire sounded some distance away. The few squads he'd sent out earlier must have run into the enemy and engaged them.

That was their only chance of survival.

He roared, "Get out there and support them! This is the critical moment! Anyone who doesn't want to die, shoot the bastards with everything you've got!"

Just then, the second barrage hit.