Barricade

The A-220 commercial street was lined on both sides with two rows of ten- to twenty-story buildings. From the battered billboards, it was clear that the ground-floor shops mainly included restaurants, upscale bars, and clothing stores, while the rest were banks and hotels.

The street was about sixty feet wide, paved with tiles cut from marble. Disabled cleaning robots and overturned garbage trucks were scattered along both sides.

Every few hundred yards, this north-south commercial street had a secure passage leading to another street. In fact, all the streets in this commercial district were connected. The entire district consisted of orderly rows of high-rises, with a commercial street running between every two rows.

By comparison, each street was only one building away from its neighbor. It was just a matter of walking from the front door of a bar to its back door.

The two squads ahead went straight past the first secure passage leading east. But since the shops and passages on either side might be hiding Kel-Morian soldiers, Augustus gave them a habitual glance as he passed.

Then he stopped at once, raised his Gauss Rifle, and aimed into the passage, dim in the absence of both electric light and sunlight. He switched on the lights on his Power Armor and the flashlight mounted on his rifle.

"Stop!"

Benjamin, Raynor, and the others behind him were confused, but they obeyed immediately. Everyone else came to a steady halt, but Omo, behind Benjamin, failed to brake in time and crashed into his back with a clank.

"You idiot!" Benjamin turned around and glared at him.

"The kid's just a little slow to react. He's been like that since he was little." Raynor came over and helped Omo regain his balance.

Raynor and the others followed Augustus into the secure passage. Thanks to the night-vision function on their helmet HUDs and the beams of their flashlights, the dimness didn't hinder the Marines' vision.

Though it was unusual, the scene was exactly as it appeared: six Marines stood motionless in the middle of the passage. When they saw Augustus and the others arrive, they didn't speak. They simply turned to look at him, as if they'd lost their souls.

"Holy Mother Mary's skirt," Benjamin exclaimed. "We've got a bunch of deserters here."

"Maybe we should hide here too," Josephine said, stunning the others.

"Who's your commanding officer?" Augustus studied the Marines and saw that their shoulders and chest plates bore none of the wolf-head insignia of the 33rd Ground Assault Division. This was one of the outward differences he'd previously noticed between Resocialized Soldiers and regular troops.

Considering the situation, Augustus thought he understood. These were likely Resocialized Soldiers without anyone to command them. With no orders to follow, they were standing in place like robots on standby.

"I'm Sergeant Augustus Mengsk. You can verify my identity in the ID search field of your suit's onboard computer."

As he spoke, Augustus lowered his visor so the Marines could see his face.

One of the Marines stared at Augustus for several seconds, then gave a crisp, perfectly regulation salute before speaking through his helmet's external 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 though the idea conflicted with his basic understanding of the world.

"Now that you've lost your commanding officer, shouldn't the Resocialized Soldiers follow the orders of the only officer currently here?" Augustus calmly led the Marine toward the answer he wanted.

"This..." The Marine hesitated. He thought for at least ten seconds, making the impatient Harnack behind Augustus mutter irritably.

"Yes, sir! Second Squad, Fourth Platoon, 1st Company, 312th Battalion requests your command!"

"Good. Your name, rank, and position?" Augustus smiled.

"Reporting, sir. Answering your question: Laird, Private First Class." The Marine stood at attention.

"Private Laird, I order you to lead Second Squad and follow me. Be ready to carry out my next order at any time."

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

"Let's go." Augustus waved them onward and led the astonished Raynor and the others out of the passage.

Augustus's squad continued down the commercial street and soon caught up with the two squads ahead. It wasn't because Augustus was eager to catch up; the troops up front had simply run into a barricade blocking the entire street and couldn't go any farther.

In keeping with the Kel-Morians' haphazard construction style, the barricade had been thrown together from two double-decker buses, chunks of concrete, and other scrap. The discarded materials and steel plates completely blocked the already narrow street.

The buses' headlights were still on, and their engines hummed. It looked as if the barricade had been thrown up only within the few hours since the Confederate army had entered the Boke district.

About ten Kel-Morian soldiers were firing on the Confederate troops from behind the barricade. Most were ordinary members of the Laborer Auxiliary Corps, whose electromagnetic guns were less powerful than the Confederacy's E- and C-series Electromagnetic Rifles. But some Kel-Morian soldiers carried grenade launchers and RPGs.

Augustus saw a Marine charging forward get hit by a grenade. His entire lower leg was blown off, and he fell to the ground, writhing in agony. Under the fierce fire, the two squads up front were pinned down and unable to move. They could only retreat, leaving behind several corpses and one wounded man crying out for help.

So, about six hundred yards from the barricade, Augustus and his men ran into the two squads as they fell back.

"You're just in time." The squad leader breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Augustus. Pointing to the barricade ahead, he said, "I'm Corporal Hopey. Maybe we can take it together."

"I don't think we need to suffer more casualties." Augustus looked ahead as the rangefinder built into his armor calculated the distance to the barricade. "This defensive position is pointless, because the whole street is connected."

"And since we can't get through here, we can take another street instead—A-219 to the left or A-221 to the right."

Hopey was briefly at a loss for words.

"You make a good point." Hopey thought for two seconds. "But what about those Kel-Morians?"

Although the corporal didn't know Augustus, he somehow felt that the man must have an answer.

"Here's my plan," Augustus said. "You and your men will launch a feint from the front, while my squad circles around behind them and attacks."

"How are we supposed to feint? We've already lost a lot of men," the corporal asked.

"All you have to do is show yourselves a few hundred yards away and keep firing to draw their attention," Augustus said. "Any other questions?"

Hopey shrugged. "You're in charge, sir."

The Confederate Marines' armor had no rank insignia, and Augustus's group included several Resocialized Soldiers. At a glance, they could be seen to outnumber a full squad by quite a bit. Add in Augustus's bearing and confident tone, and he'd clearly impressed Hopey, who naturally assumed that Augustus was a commissioned officer.

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

Raynor, Harnack, and the others chuckled over the comms.

After speaking, Augustus led his squad and the Resocialized Soldiers into a nearby department store. They crossed the lobby and exited through the other side of the building onto A-221 Commercial Street.