WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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Chapter 407: Wind from High Places (5)

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On May 3rd, one inch of snow fell over the training area.

Gyeoul stood before a broken tree and an overturned armored vehicle, breathing out white vapor. The detached parachute had caught on another tree nearby and was billowing in the cold wind. It was now 7 a.m. Though the sun had already climbed over the ridge, the temperature was still below freezing. With the knife-edged mountain wind, the wind chill had dropped to around ten degrees below zero Celsius.

Crunch, crunch. The snow that had piled up overnight had frozen through the early morning, giving a slightly firm resistance underfoot. After circling the accident site once, Gyeoul asked the Russian officer standing with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Major Gushkin. How did the rescue work on the valley side turn out?"

The airborne troops major, whose full name was Alexei Viktorovich Gushkin, answered with a displeased expression.

"They told me no one was injured. They are simply wedged in the valley and unable to maneuver."

"That's a relief."

"For now, yes. But the Americans need to make something better. If this keeps happening, sooner or later people are going to die."

Gyeoul was an American citizen too, but Major Gushkin had no qualms about criticizing America in front of him. On the other hand, as someone training alongside them, his complaint was understandable. Ever since the airborne drop training began, accidents like this had been happening frequently.

Today alone, there had been two.

Gyeoul looked inside the armored vehicle. A little blood remained. One of the evacuated soldiers had suffered a concussion, so it must have been from that soldier hitting their head. Aside from that, there were several fractures. Their lives were not in danger, but they could no longer fight. They had to assume similar things would happen in actual combat too.

This armored vehicle had been swept off course by the wind and drifted away from the planned landing point. In terms of distance, it had not gone that far. The problem was that in mountain terrain like this, the relatively safe landing zones were narrow to begin with, and the moment one strayed even a little from them, things became dangerous.

For Gyeoul, reconstructing the rough landing process in his head was fairly easy.

'There are scratches and dents on the lower armor plate, so... the shock-absorbing mat must have burst first.'

To drop an armored vehicle from the sky, an air mat was essential to absorb the impact the moment it hit the ground. But this armored vehicle had fallen right onto a straight-grown evergreen, of all things, so the mat must have torn first. Crack, boom. The tree broke, and the armored vehicle struck the ground upside down. The scene before his eyes was the result. Even slowed by a parachute, it was still a thirteen-ton lump of metal. The turret that had come off lay separately over there.

"Did you hear me?"

At Major Gushkin's urging, Gyeoul nodded without looking back.

"Yes. You said they need to make something better."

"The directional control is poor, is it not?"

"I'm not sure. This seems more like the limit of an airborne drop using parachutes. The loss rate is better than expected too... If we attach anything more, air transport itself will become impossible, you know?"

The parachute with auxiliary rockets weighed two tons. And the bigger problem was volume, not weight. This was the result even after America and Russia had worked together on the technology. They could hardly shrink the armored vehicle either. That would defeat the purpose.

"Then instead of parachutes, we should use nuclear airships."

Only then did Gyeoul turn to Gushkin.

"I thought that discussion was already settled higher up."

"The operation has not even begun yet. We can still submit a proposal to change the plan. If they are worried about a firepower gap, they can simply deploy one more ship."

"The firepower gap isn't the only problem."

Gyeoul narrowed his eyes slightly.

Because every component of an airborne unit had to be light, they lacked artillery firepower. The second Patrick Henry-class ship was supposed to fill that gap. The airship named after Gyeoul. Unlike what they had imagined before, the Ground Zero Vacuum operation had been planned as a short strike-in, pull-out operation, so they had concluded that one ship alone could provide enough overwatch and fire support.

Naturally, some had argued that they should use it to transport troops as well. But that would create a firepower gap during that time, and the airship itself had many features that made it unsuitable for an assault, so the idea had been rejected.

'To begin with, there's no way an airship with a gasbag larger than an aircraft carrier could land stably without mooring facilities...'

If it were an ordinary airship used to hang banners, perhaps. But the Patrick Henry-class had an enormous surface area, and it needed dedicated mooring facilities to land. It was too affected by wind. On top of that, the planned landing site was a windy highland.

It would be possible if they added anchors. But at the very least, it would require a two-anchor mooring, and assuming they added a pair of anchors and hoists, they would waste around 160 tons of payload.

Even if they accepted that and retrofitted it, landing quickly at that size would be difficult. That meant it would be vulnerable to attack the entire time. Then there was the overwhelming visibility caused by its overwhelming size. Even if they dropped at night, an airship that had come down to the ground would draw the attention of a great many mutants.

There were plenty of other flaws if he wanted to count them.

Most decisively, Esther would be aboard the airship. That was the most important reason the airship had to stay in the air. She needed to be able to collect radio waves over a wider range. With Esther's help, the aerial battery would pinpoint mutant movements and, if necessary, put direct hits on every Trickster whose location had been confirmed. Though using them would be better than killing them right away. If they wiped out the Tricksters from the start, it would become harder to observe the mutants' movements.

Sometimes, a disorderly enemy was harder to deal with.

Gyeoul held back because Major Gushkin surely knew all of this too.

Even so, the major did not like watching his subordinates get hurt.

Gyeoul raised a hand toward the major, who seemed about to say more.

"If you really want to submit a proposal, follow the formal chain of command. Don't take it up with me."

Gushkin closed his mouth with a sour expression. Judging by the mood, he had already submitted one and been ignored. That was why he had come to complain to Gyeoul.

'Now that I think about it, that was a test.'

When Major General Kapralov had brought up Rogers' promotion from major general to lieutenant general, it seemed the reason had not only been that it was actually needed, but also that he wanted to confirm Gyeoul's ability. As proof, ever since Rogers had put on lieutenant general's stars, the number of Russian officers acting friendly toward Gyeoul had sharply increased. Major General Kapralov's attitude had grown warmer than before as well. The mood treated Gyeoul as some sort of behind-the-scenes power broker.

Among them, Gushkin was one of the few Russian officers who was difficult even with Gyeoul.

He said, "I'll go look elsewhere."

"Let me know if you see anything that can be improved."

"That's why I came."

When the major answered bluntly and left, Jin-seok, who had been watching silently, finally let out his complaints.

"What was that? What kind of damn attitude was that?"

"It's because the soldiers got hurt. It's better than treating these losses as normal."

"Even so, there's such a thing as basic courtesy. They can treat me like dirt if they want, but not Little Captain. Our unit's pride is on the line. Can't we ask them to replace him? There are plenty of people desperate to come over to our side."

"Hold out a little longer. We won't be receiving advice for long."

At the moment, not only the Independent Battalion but the entire U.S. force participating in the operation was receiving advice and evaluation from the Russian officer corps. Russia was the only country, both before and after the plagues, that conducted parachute assaults with people loaded inside tanks and armored vehicles. They had the ability to begin fighting the moment they landed. The U.S. military was in the middle of absorbing and developing that technology and tacit knowledge.

"How far behind were we this time, from drop to rally?"

When Gyeoul asked, Jin-seok sighed.

"We were twenty-one minutes slower than the Russians."

"Don't sigh. This is only the third time. It would be stranger if we had already caught up to veterans."

"They say even the Russians are unfamiliar with dropping in this kind of terrain."

"Even so. That's still better than having no experience at all."

"..."

"Sometimes, try praising the soldiers too."

"It's better to leave that as the battalion commander's role."

The answer was so firm that Gyeoul gave a troubled smile.

Afterward, the Independent Battalion conducted basic maneuver training. This also doubled as performance testing for the newly assigned equipment. Whether airborne tanks or armored vehicles, they were not simply using Russian models as-is, so there was still room for improvement.

The ride inside the armored vehicle was not good at all. Since they had to reduce weight while still securing performance, the comfort of the people inside had fallen low on the priority list. The soldiers wearing CBRN protective suits looked like they might die at any moment.

The armored vehicle had a positive pressure system to block outside air from flowing in, but dismounted combat was unavoidable, so wearing protective suits was mandatory. China, which had been the first to face the plagues, had used nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons without restraint. Near the origin of Morgellons, there was a high chance that some radiation and high concentrations of necrotoxin remained.

Gyeoul thought.

'At least it's a relief that we have less to worry about with anthrax now.'

The identification code for the anthrax-resistant mutant was Anthrax Rosie. The name came from the British nursery rhyme Ring a Ring o' Rosie, based on the urban legend that the rhyme had been created during the time of the Black Death.

America had been extremely wary of Anthrax Rosie making landfall. An anthrax vaccine did exist, but production was not enough even to vaccinate only the soldiers. For one person to acquire perfect immunity, ten vaccine doses had to be used over a year and a half. Even then, they needed booster shots every year afterward, or the immunity would disappear. Anthrax bacteria, on the other hand, could survive in soil for a century.

For that reason, all soldiers who would drop into Ground Zero, including Gyeoul's Independent Battalion, had undergone intensive vaccination. They had increased the dosage to shorten the vaccination period.

It was a little funny that the Tricksters they would release needed immunity too.

Like the Trickster, Anthrax Rosie was known to spread immunity through reinfection. In other words, if a mutant that had gained immunity bit another mutant, the bitten one would gain immunity as well. He could not know for sure, but perhaps some special forces unit had already gone to the Chinese mainland one step ahead of them.

Or perhaps Russia had already secured it.

Gyeoul thought once again about the share Russia held in this operation.

Around noon, after finishing training, the Independent Battalion came down along the western slope of the mountain range and reached the outskirts of the small city of Leadville.

But when the garrison was just ahead, a group of protesters blocked the Independent Battalion's path. Gyeoul, flustered, opened the hatch and pushed his upper body out. The protesters were shouting these slogans.

「The military must not destroy nature! The military must not destroy nature!」

「Stop military training that damages the natural landscape at once!」

It was an awkward situation. The battalion had no choice but to stop. Unless they received a proper order, the military could not lay hands on ordinary civilians in any way. Martial law had been lifted long ago. While Gyeoul hesitated, the sound of sirens drew closer from the direction of town. Patrol cars appeared in a line.

Not long after, the sheriff of Lake County appeared as well. When he saw Gyeoul after getting out of the car, he touched the brim of his hat and dipped his head.

"First time meeting you. I'm Burkhardt."

"I'm Han Gyeoul. What's going on here?"

"As you can see, they say it's a protest to stop military training that ruins the natural landscape. At least on the surface."

"On the surface?"

At Gyeoul's puzzled response, the sheriff shrugged.

"This is just what I heard on my way here, but apparently the real reason lies elsewhere. The governor called personally. He also asked me to tell the lieutenant colonel that he's sorry he couldn't prevent this in advance."

"It is not something the governor needs to apologize to me for, but I would like to know what that real reason is."

"I didn't hear the details either. It seems there are some political circumstances, but I'll let you know as soon as I confirm them. First, I'll try to make a path so you can enter the garrison."

The protesters shouted loudly, but they obeyed police control more readily than expected. All of them seemed to be holding themselves back somehow. It did not quite fit a group of protesters who had blocked the military.

Footnotes:

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