Street Barricade

The A-220 commercial street was flanked by two rows of ten-to-twenty-story high-rises. From the dilapidated billboards, it was clear that the ground-floor storefronts had primarily served as eateries, upscale bars, and clothing shops, while others housed banks and hotels.

The street was about sixty feet wide, paved with marble-cut tiles. Paralyzed cleaning robots and overturned garbage trucks were scattered everywhere along the roadside.

This north-south commercial street featured safety passages leading to other commercial streets every few hundred yards; in fact, all the streets in this commercial district were interconnected. The entire area consisted of rows of uniformly laid-out high-rises, with a commercial street running between every two rows of buildings.

Relatively speaking, the distance between any one commercial street and its neighbor was no more than the width of a single building—a mere matter of walking from the front door of a bar to its back door.

The two squads ahead marched straight past the first eastward safety passage, but because Kel-Morian soldiers could be lurking in any of the shops or passages on either side, Augustus habitually glanced over as he passed.

He stopped immediately, raised his Gauss Rifle to aim into the passage—which appeared dim due to the lack of lighting and sunlight—and activated both his Power Armor's floodlights and the one mounted on his rifle.

"Halt!"

Benjamin, Raynor, and the others behind him were puzzled, but they complied immediately. However, while everyone else came to a steady stop, only Omo, behind Benjamin, failed to brake in time, slamming into Benjamin's back with a loud clatter.

"You idiot!" Benjamin turned around, glaring.

"The kid's just a bit slow on the uptake; he's been like that since he was small," Raynor said, stepping up to help Omo steady himself.

Raynor and the others then followed Augustus into the safety passage. Thanks to the night-vision function of the HUD on their visors combined with the glare of the floodlights, the Marines' vision was not hindered by the gloom.

Though it was unusual, they saw exactly what Augustus had: six Marines standing perfectly still in the middle of the passage. When they saw Augustus and his group approach, they didn't speak, merely turning to look at him as if they had lost their souls.

"Mother Mary's petticoat," Benjamin remarked. "We've got a bunch of deserters here."

"How about we hide here too?" Josephine blurted out.

"Who is your commanding officer?" Augustus observed the Marines, noting that neither their shoulders nor their chest plates bore the wolf-head insignia of the 33rd Ground Assault Division—a visual distinction he had previously observed between resocialized soldiers and regular troops.

Connecting this to the current situation, Augustus seemed to understand. These were likely resocialized soldiers without a commander, standing in place like robots in standby mode, waiting for orders that would never come.

"I am Sergeant Augustus Mengsk. You can verify this identity in the ID search field of your armor's onboard computer."

As he spoke, Augustus lowered his visor, letting the Marines see his face clearly.

One of the Marines stared at Augustus's face for a few seconds, performed a crisp, perfectly regulation military salute, and then spoke through his external helmet speaker: "Reporting, sir. Our commanding officer is Second Lieutenant Jenard."

"Where is Second Lieutenant Jenard?" Augustus asked.

"He... he was killed in action," the Marine hesitated, as if such an event conflicted with his basic programming.

"Then, in the absence of a commanding officer, should resocialized soldiers not follow the orders of the only officer currently present?" Augustus asked in a calm tone, guiding the Marine toward the answer he wanted.

"This..." The Marine hesitated, pondering for at least ten seconds, which caused the impatient Harnack behind Augustus to mutter under his breath.

"Yes, sir! 2nd Squad, 4th Platoon, 1st Company, 312th Battalion requests your command!"

"Very good. Your name, rank, and position." Augustus smiled.

"Reporting, sir. Answering your question. Laird, Private," the Marine said, standing at attention.

"Private Laird, I order you to lead 2nd Squad to follow me and be ready to obey my next command at any time."

"Yes, sir!" The Marines saluted in unison.

"Let's move." Augustus waved his hand and led the stunned Raynor and the others out of the safety passage.

Augustus's squad continued along the commercial street and soon caught up with the two squads ahead. This wasn't because Augustus was desperate to catch them, but simply because the troops in front had encountered a barricade blocking the entire street, making further progress impossible.

In keeping with the haphazard Kel-Morian style, the barricade was constructed from two double-decker buses, concrete blocks, and other scrap. These discarded materials and steel plates had completely choked the already narrow street.

The headlights of the two buses were still on, and their engines hummed; it appeared this barricade had been erected only hours ago, during the Confederacy's assault on the Pride of Boke district.

About ten Kel-Morian soldiers were hiding behind the barricade, firing at the Confederate troops. Most were auxiliary laborers, and their Electromagnetic Rifles lacked the firepower of the Confederate E-series and C-series Gauss Rifles, but some Kel-Morians were armed with grenade launchers and RPGs.

Augustus watched as a charging Marine was struck by a grenade, his entire lower leg blown off, leaving him rolling on the ground in agony. The two squads in front were pinned down by heavy fire, forced to retreat after leaving behind several corpses and a wounded man wailing for help.

Thus, about six hundred yards from the barricade, Augustus ran straight into the retreating squads.

"You've come at just the right time." One of the squad leaders breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing Augustus. He pointed at the barricade and said, "I'm Corporal Hopey. Maybe we can take that position together."

"I don't think it's necessary to pay a higher price in lives." Augustus looked ahead; the rangefinder in his armor was calculating his distance to the barricade. "This kind of defensive position is meaningless because the entire street is interconnected."

"And since this road is blocked, we can simply take another street—for instance, A-219 to the left or A-221 to the right."

Hopey was momentarily speechless.

"What you say makes a lot of sense." Hopey pondered for two seconds. "But what about those Kel-Morians?"

Though he didn't know Augustus, the corporal inexplicably felt that the man must have the answer to this problem.

"Here is my plan," Augustus said. "You and your men will provide a feint from the front, while my squad circles around to attack them from the rear."

"What kind of feint? We've already lost quite a few men," the corporal asked.

"Just show yourselves a few hundred yards out and keep firing to draw their attention," Augustus said. "Do you have any other questions?"

Hopey shrugged. "You're the boss, sir."

Since Confederate Marine armor lacked rank insignia, and Augustus's group included several resocialized soldiers—making them look like more than a full-strength squad—combined with his imposing presence and confident tone, Hopey was intimidated into assuming Augustus was a commissioned officer.

"I'm not an officer. I'm a corporal, just like you," Augustus said.

Raynor, Harnack, and the others let out a scoff over the comms channel.

After saying this, Augustus led his squad and the resocialized soldiers into a nearby department store, passing through the lobby to enter A-221 commercial street from the other side.