Unexpected Reinforcements

The C-14 Gauss Rifle fired at a rate of thirty rounds per second. Its electromagnetically accelerated bullets traveled far beyond the speed of sound, producing fifteen sonic booms every second. Like a blazing torch tearing through the night, the stream of bullets cut down Infested Terrans in its path—either slicing them in half at the waist or blowing them apart in an instant, spraying thick bloody mist as the bodies piled up like hills.

Andre had long since lost track of how many rounds he had fired or how many enemies he had killed. There was no point in talking about it now.

There were more Infested Terrans on any single hectare of ground before him than he had bullets in his hands, to say nothing of those enormous mutated creatures whose carapaces were so hard that even depleted-uranium armor-piercing rounds could not bite through them.

A few minutes ago, the Shrike automated turrets above the Bunker had still been spewing metal storms, picking off mutated creatures one by one as they entered range. But for some reason, they had now fallen silent, unable to even spit out a spark.

In the other directions around this position, two-thirds of the sentry turrets, Bunkers, and Plasteel emplacements had already become—or were becoming—ruins. Flames shot into the sky, and black smoke billowed upward.

As far as the eye could see, the Infested Terran horde lay across the ground like a thick grayish-brown carpet. Rather than showing any sign of dwindling, the enemy numbers only grew with every battle, while the promised reinforcements remained nowhere in sight.

Clearly, they were finished.

"Captain, there are at least three Corpse Behemoths fifteen hundred yards directly ahead of us. And a huge pack of Bombers and Throat Stranglers!" O'Neill fired out through another firing slit. In