It Doesn't Matter, I'll Take Responsibility

After arriving at the conference room on the fifth floor of the building, the soldier performed the Aquila salute and stood aside. Qin Mo pushed the door open and entered.

Grey and the officers above the squad leader rank of the 47th Regiment were sitting on the ground, their attention drawn by the sound of the door opening.

Seeing Qin Mo walk in and sit down, the regimental commander said to everyone, "Let's begin the meeting."

Everyone nodded.

Then, the regimental commander introduced himself to Qin Mo, "Klein."

"Qin Mo."

"What should we do next?"

After the introductions, the regimental commander immediately asked a question that caught Qin Mo off guard.

Seeing all eyes on him, Qin Mo lowered his head in thought.

To provide Qin Mo with more reference points, Commander Klein began to explain the situation as he knew it.

"Intelligence from above indicates there are only thirty thousand rebels in the Underhive, and we deployed one hundred and seventy thousand into the Underhive, so we clearly have the advantage."

"But the rebels actually have three hundred thousand, and they've even established industrial zones in the Underhive, allowing them to be self-sufficient."

"Three days ago, our front line was crushed in one day, and the Marshal and all the high-ranking officials around him were assassinated. Fortunately, before he died, he sensed something was wrong and ordered fifty thousand men to establish defensive positions under the guise of building supply outposts."

After a brief overview, Klein closed his mouth.

"Continue," Qin Mo said.

"Of course, I should continue, but what you don't know is what I should emphasize," Klein nodded.

"I don't know anything," Qin Mo looked up at Klein. "I'm not a regimental commander or an officer. I'm just a grunt from the 44th Regiment. I stupidly entered the Underhive and stupidly built defensive works. I don't even know why the higher-ups would build defensive positions while executing an offensive plan."

"Uh, okay." Klein nodded vigorously, spilling out everything he knew without reservation.

Then Qin Mo understood the current situation.

Communications were cut off.

Except for the fifty thousand soldiers ordered by the Marshal to establish defensive positions, all other troops who continued to execute the offensive plan could be considered annihilated.

As it stood, no one knew which defensive positions had been breached and which remained. They were completely unable to contact each other.

This meant that the most pessimistic but reasonable assumption was that, apart from this building, all other defensive positions might have already been overrun.

Unless someone could prove that other positions still existed.

Finally, Klein mentioned an order known only to regimental officers: if the offensive plan failed, the only passage from the Underhive to the lower hive would be blown up.

"Who gave the order for the offensive?" Grey asked furiously. "This is clearly a fraud! I have reason to suspect that the Hive City's higher-ups just wanted us dead!"

"My family is in the Upper Hive, but as far as I know, the offensive plan was planned and executed by the Marshal himself," Klein replied helplessly.

"I think the most pessimistic scenario isn't that there's no one else besides us, but that the entire Hive City has been taken over by the rebels!"

"Perhaps..."

"Emperor above, how could the intelligence be so wrong?"

"..."

"Enough!" Qin Mo raised his hand to stop them. "Our most important task right now isn't to discuss whose fault the offensive plan was, but how we can survive. Once we're out alive, we'll get revenge on those idiots!"

Hearing this, Grey swallowed the words he was about to continue with and nodded in agreement.

Qin Mo then turned to Klein, "Did the upper echelons of the army give you the operational plan? For example, maps showing the deployment locations of various positions, or anything else?"

Klein unhesitatingly produced a map and handed it to Qin Mo.

Qin Mo spread out the map and examined the positions near the 47th Infantry Regiment.

Seventy kilometers to the east was a position, manned by two regiments.

Fifty kilometers to the west was a position, manned by four regiments.

The rest were at least one to two hundred kilometers away.

Before his transmigration, Qin Mo couldn't intuitively grasp the vastness of the Hive City, but now he did.

"If we want to survive, we must first resist the rebel offensive," Qin Mo raised his hand and swept it across all the positions. "We need to confirm which positions on the defense line still exist and which have been breached. If many have been breached, we'll have to retreat and re-establish the defense line; otherwise, we'll continue to defend."

"What's the point of continuing to defend? Can we wait for reinforcements?" Klein asked.

"We can't wait for reinforcements, but I can guarantee that if you give me enough time, I can increase our combat effectiveness exponentially," Qin Mo replied.

Klein's eyes drifted to Grey and the other four survivors from the 44th Regiment. They were all carrying metal backpacks, which might be the reason they could move through the hail of gunfire as if it were a paradise.

Therefore, Klein had good reason to believe Qin Mo's promise, and he nodded in agreement, "I agree. Please tell us your orders."

"Okay, we, we..." Qin Mo hesitated for a moment, then asked, "Why have you acted like my subordinate from beginning to end?"

Qin Mo found Klein to be a strange person. He was very different from Burl. This guy had proactively shown a willingness to obey orders instead of ensuring his own command.

"Because I want to survive. I don't care who commands; I only care if a powerful psychic can stay by our side. Because if there's another offensive and you're not here, everyone in the 47th Regiment will be doomed!" Klein said with utmost honesty.

Qin Mo understood Klein's thoughts.

This guy wished Qin Mo would directly become the commander of the 47th Regiment, because then Qin Mo would have the responsibility to fight for the lives of everyone in the infantry regiment.

Of course, that was their theoretical duty. After all, if someone like Burl directly fled, the soldiers below wouldn't be able to stop them.

"Alright." Qin Mo lowered his head and looked at the map, pointing to the position to the east. "I'll head there first to confirm if there are any survivors on the position, but before that, I'll help you consolidate your defenses."

"Firstly, this building isn't reliable. It'll collapse sooner or later. We need to make it bigger and larger, then build underground sections. The soldiers will fight on the surface and rest below ground."

"We have too little heavy firepower. We must add heavy logging guns and stationary meltaguns, and shrink every window into firing slits and observation ports."

"Then..."

"Sorry to interrupt." Klein raised his hand. "There's no one in charge of logistics anymore. We don't have engineering troops to build fortifications, nor convoys responsible for transporting heavy weapons to the front lines. We only have the people we have now."

"It doesn't matter, I'll take care of it." Qin Mo stood up and looked down at Klein. "Now, have your people find me some metal and electronic parts. If you can't find electronic parts, then find copper and rubber."

Upon hearing the order, Klein nodded, his belief wavering.