For nearly a second, the Haigolong Legion soldiers who had turned to look at Augustus froze. The others—many more still firing at the hangar—did not notice anything unusual about the gunshot until gunfire erupted around them, until their brothers began roaring, and only then did they look behind them.
For a moment, the bewildered Haigolong Legion soldiers did not even know where the enemy was coming from. It was the dead of night, with light and shadow intermingling. The Marines were all clad in dark blue armor, making it seem as though someone among them had gone mad and was trying to kill everyone without regard for friend or foe.
They stared blankly as a Haigolong Legion soldier carrying a heavy machine gun fired point-blank into his own brother's visor, continuing until he shattered the man's helmet.
"What are you doing? Have you gone insane?"
"They betrayed Haigolong!"
"Who are we supposed to shoot?"
The enemy was right beside them. The Haigolongs' comm channels dissolved into chaos, and within barely a dozen seconds, blood was already flowing like a river before the bunkers of the third defensive line.
"They don't have numbers on their shoulders." Only after more than twenty Haigolong Legion soldiers had fallen to the ground did someone notice the difference between Augustus's men and their own.
But it was not daylight. To confirm identities, they needed the searchlights mounted on their Gauss Rifles or some other source of illumination, and often, before they could tell friend from foe, grenades from behind had already knocked them down.
The battle unfolded in a flash. The Haigolongs' first solution was to fire flares rather than change the identification settings of their Power Armor. By the time the first flare rose into the sky, too many of their brothers had already