WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 377: Each One's Homeland (11)

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The four-lane road wedged between the weapons expo hall and the Carnegie Library had nothing left intact. Heavy machine gun fire had chewed up the asphalt, and the abandoned vehicles had been reduced to scrap metal full of enough holes to use as nets. Crash! Another armored vehicle burst through the front glass of the exhibition hall. With hostile armored vehicles still increasing, the friendly side, a mixed force of military, police, FBI Hostage Rescue Team, and White Cell agents, was clearly at a disadvantage.

Even so, the fact that the enemy was still pinned here at all was astonishing. Several vehicles the enemy had brought out were burning fiercely. The traitors were failing to make full use of their superior firepower. Or else they were waiting for their numbers to grow.

‘I was going to hit them from the rear if I was late...’

Someone at the Carnegie Library seemed to have spotted Gyeoul approaching from cover to cover and was waving frantically for him to come. Gyeoul felt the shoulder alert vibrate. It meant a considerable number of White Cell agents were nearby.

Bang bang bang bang! The heavy gunshots were right on top of him. Heavy machine gun fire poured in from only thirty meters away. The line of fire cut across the air a handspan away. The moment the torn air shook his bangs, Gyeoul gritted his teeth and slid inside the circular steps at the front of the library. His lower body, scraped hard by momentum, burned as if it had caught fire. The ground was already littered with crumbling stone fragments. His Dress Blue pants, never meant for real combat, were ruined in an instant. Blood seeped from his right thigh. The weight of his gear had played a large part too. Even reduced in size, it was packed full of ammunition and still weighed a great deal. Still, he was glad he had stubbornly brought it. The crouching Marines reacted like people finding water in the desert.

“Jesus! Is that ammunition?!”

Gyeoul nodded and flipped the pack over. Magazines and explosives spilled out in a clatter, and everyone who saw them, officers and enlisted alike, sighed in relief. Gyeoul threw magazines to the men who could not afford to leave their positions. It was not enough for everyone to share, but at least it could put out the immediate fire.

“Oorah! With this, we can kill another dozen of those whore sons of bitches!”

That was what one of them said while looking ready to die from exhaustion. If that was not Marine-like, what was?

The gas mask the Marine wore was a civilian model in bright primary colors. It was probably one of the emergency supplies required to be stocked in every public facility.

“Uh, wait!”

A soldier who belatedly recognized Gyeoul made a stunned sound.

“Could you be Lieutenant Colonel Han Gyeoul?”

There was a lot of dust from the steps breaking apart in real time. Gyeoul coughed and nodded again. Then he recognized the soldier’s face, and the faces of the others. They were the Marines who had received the Medal of Honor. Judging by their Dress Blues, which belonged at a ceremony and nowhere else, what they had gone through was likely no different from Gyeoul’s situation.

The officer leading them, a breathless Marine Lieutenant, gave him a nod.

“Glad you made it! Until just now, huff, I was a little confused! Looks like this place isn’t hell yet!”

The voice was muffled by the gas mask, but the relief in it was clear. The same words echoed from the radio, as if they were on the same frequency. Gyeoul shouted.

“Situation?!”

The Lieutenant shouted back.

“Friendly forces are scattered all over! They say a few are still inside the expo hall the enemy occupied! We don’t know the exact number! For now, there! Head inside! It’s the temporary command room!”

The direction was clear enough from the communication line running that way. A window cut into the library’s basement level, its bars torn away, was serving as a makeshift entrance and bunker. The stairs leading straight down to the basement were exposed to enemy fire. Gyeoul picked up his lightened pack and entered the building, leaving bloodstains on the dry ground behind him.

Inside the earth and walls, the effect of the jamming fell sharply. The situation room was in the direction where light was leaking out. The highest-ranking person there, standing before a map and busy giving orders, outranked Gyeoul.

“Sir!”

The person who looked up at the call was none other than Colonel Emmert. A bandage was wrapped around one shoulder, as if from an injury. Blood also ran down Emmert’s forehead. It looked fresh. Clearly exhausted, Emmert looked slightly startled to see Gyeoul, then lowered both shoulders and swept back their hair.

“Were you part of that organization called White Cell too, Lieutenant Colonel?”

Judging by the same identification device, the colonel was in a similar position.

“I just became part of it. Could you tell me the most urgent matter first?”

Gyeoul was relieved to have found a superior officer, especially after hearing there would be few on site. It was not that he lacked confidence in commanding, but in this kind of fight, he judged it would be more useful to project his own combat power.

Skipping the courtesies, the colonel explained friendly status and deployments at mechanical speed, then moved straight to the enemy situation.

“You should know the general situation before you go. The reason the enemy can’t advance recklessly is because of the road conditions they ruined themselves. They don’t know where we’re hiding. As long as their infantry can’t keep up with the vehicles, they can’t come out. We’re making sure of that on this side. They lack real combat experience. Cowards, the lot of them.”

That made sense. Whether it was an armored vehicle or a tank, if it allowed infantry to get close, it could be destroyed with absurd ease. And this city’s roads were full of wrecked vehicles. In other words, blind spots were everywhere. So no matter how many tanks and armored vehicles they had, they could not go anywhere without friendly infantry cover.

‘If they step out for no reason and get knocked out, they only add to the obstacles.’

If even one tank went down, a lump of metal weighing more than fifty tons would block the road. Seeing how cautious they were despite having armored vehicles, the enemy commander seemed to understand the basics too. The problem was their level. General Schroeder had not called them rear-echelon idiots for nothing. It was just that those idiots had gotten their hands on dangerous things. Gyeoul thought about their leader.

‘Even if Mrs. Chadwick was an intelligence agent, she wouldn’t have experience commanding a full-scale battle.’

In other words, the enemy’s caution was useful information for Gyeoul, who was about to fight them.

An urgent report came in with a crackle. Gunshots rattled in the background. Colonel Emmert broke off mid-explanation and exchanged quick, breathless messages with someone, then briefly handed command to another officer and continued speaking fast. That alone proved how important the mission was.

“Even so, we don’t have the ability to hold them for long. There are too many detours. We have to block the other roads before more of the enemy crawls out.”

“Where should I go?”

“I want you to block the intersection northwest of the expo hall. If possible, the one below it too. It’s a hard role. Right now, we don’t even have a common LAW. The team deployed at the restaurant at seven o’clock has two sets, but it’s hard to bring them over. If you think this is impossible, say so now. Nobody will blame you.”

A LAW was a light but weak rocket launcher. The reality of the forces here was that even those were in short supply.

Meanwhile, seven o’clock was the straight road toward the White House. The weapons there could not be pulled away.

Of course, abandoning the mission was out of the question.

“No, it’s fine. What should I do after that?”

At Gyeoul’s firm answer, the colonel’s eyebrow twitched. It was pity mixed with goodwill, and at the same time, faint expectation. Lieutenant Colonel Han Gyeoul had built that much of a reputation. Emmert was also a comrade and witness from the Battle of Santa Maria.

The colonel pulled over a laptop and brought up a map of the expo hall interior. It was a command system connected to the White House by wire. Emmert pointed to several spots on the map and said,

“Here, here... and here. There may be friendly forces still inside. These are their last confirmed positions from about thirty minutes ago. They were isolated while trying to stop the enemy from seizing equipment. If you see signs of survivors, use your judgment. Link up and get out, or reorganize and push farther in. If you go inside, be careful. We have intelligence that there are hostages. How many will you take from here?”

The last question was natural, but Gyeoul judged that this position had no room to split off troops. Infantry short on firepower were relying on terrain to stop an armored force with their own bodies. Not as a metaphor. Literally.

So the answer was already decided.

“I’ll go alone.”

“...Are you confident?”

“It’s not a question of whether I can. It’s a question of whether I should. The most important thing is the safety of the White House and the Capitol, isn’t it? I can’t block a detour while opening a shortcut for them.”

The current defensive line was far too thin. If the enemy accepted losses and came out boldly, it would not be strange for it to be breached at any moment. Everyone was overextending themselves. The colonel knew that too, which was why Emmert did not press him any further.

Moving alone also had the advantage of being less noticeable. He intended to strike quietly while the friendly side held the enemy’s attention from the front.

Gyeoul asked,

“If friendly forces and hostages get out, can we request close air support?”

“Ah.”

The colonel grimaced.

“National Guard stored materiel was looted. The enemy has Stingers. Quite a few of them.”

Stinger was the name of a man-portable surface-to-air missile. Gyeoul swallowed a sigh and accepted reality. Unless they were remnants of Shangjiang Yang Yongbin’s faction, where would anyone on the quarantine front even use surface-to-air missiles? Even disposal required manpower and a budget. So after being converted to reserve materiel, they had probably been all but forgotten.

Since the wired communication network was alive and the enemy’s nature was clear, he had thought they might be able to call in gunships, but that was impossible after all.

‘Fighter-bombers are no good. Blowing away the entire building would cause too much collateral damage... And even if we cleared the rooftops, it would be meaningless unless we cleared the whole area around the city too.’

There was no guarantee they had placed surface-to-air missiles only here. Just like the bombs in residential areas, true safety would only be secured by searching all the suburbs around D.C. The White House’s prediction that the sky was dangerous had come true.

Gyeoul held back further questions. There seemed to be no more information to confirm. He had already inferred enough about the enemy’s firepower from the scene outside. It was powerful, but compared to the number of armored vehicles, the volume of fire felt lacking. If they had been blasting away with monsters like tank main guns or airburst rounds, the defensive line would have collapsed long ago.

‘It must have been difficult to prepare plenty of every type of ammunition.’

Bullets and shells were completely different in procurement difficulty. And this situation had been triggered by the government side’s surprise attack too. Could their preparations really be enough in every respect?

Colonel Emmert expressed concern as Gyeoul was about to leave.

“Is your leg all right?”

The colonel was looking at the blood soaking Gyeoul’s clothes.

“It’s just an abrasion.”

Clatter. Gyeoul set down his pack.

“I’ll leave this behind.”

The only things he took separately were the identification device he had hung on a cord and two plastic explosives. Colonel Emmert looked about to say something, then pressed their mouth shut with a complicated expression. Then the colonel turned their gaze back to the map. It was a farewell given in silence.

Now it was time to run again.

Before he even made it out of the library’s western corridor, a biting wind blew in. Gyeoul stepped onto a window frame, climbed out, and rolled across the grass. For a moment, he saw allied fire intensify. They were trying to conceal his movement. The smoke rising from civilian vehicles crumpled almost flat by accidents helped too. It did not compare to a proper smoke grenade, but it had the advantage of not drawing the enemy’s attention with a sudden change.

As he moved carefully, the banners hanging in rows from every streetlamp caught his eye.

「Welcome to D.C. A city full of energy, unforgettable events.」

It did seem like today would be unforgettable.

Gaaaaang.

From the path ahead came the distinctive engine noise of a gas turbine. A tank with an unusual shape emerged from the shadows between buildings. It had crawled out of the expo hall’s western entrance. Its angular, thick-looking exterior stood out. So did its passivity, as it stayed near the same spot and moved forward and back again.

Gyeoul remembered Colonel Emmert’s assessment that the enemy was cowardly.

In the end, though, it would come out. It had to. Unless they intended to accept failure and treason charges. They were being driven from behind by death too.

For the side that had to stop it, that unfamiliar shape was a problem.

‘I don’t know where its weak point is.’

Equipment specialized for the quarantine war differed in many ways from the weapons that had come before it. Unlike an ordinary tank, that tank’s defenses were probably uniform in every direction. It would not be sturdy enough to block tank shells, but it was obvious that destroying it with the amount of explosives Gyeoul had would be difficult.

In the past, when war heroes talked about the Quarantine War Expo, many had shown excitement for the new weapon systems. Colonel Emmert had been one of them.

But to think he would end up facing those weapons like this.

Footnotes:

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