Li Qingyu panicked for real. He wasn't afraid to die—he'd respawn in the Hideout—but the weapon would be lost!
The stomping from both sides grew louder, and he wished the ground would swallow him.
His eye caught a fresh crater filled with gore. An idea flashed through his mind—and he dove inside, throwing himself in among the remains.
He grabbed a severed arm and placed it across his chest; with the other hand he pulled out some intestines and neatly arranged them over his stomach. Then he smeared blood across his face, let his tongue hang out, and froze among the dead.
He finished his disguise at the exact moment both sides reached the trench and spotted each other.
Without warning, they opened fire.
The PDF sergeant, armed with a lasgun rare for such units, burned a fist-sized hole through a rebel's chest with the first shot—the man dropped at once, his guts hissing from the heat.
The other soldiers fired their autoguns—ordinary bullets no longer punched through the rebels' organic breastplates, but sheer volume still did damage.
The mutineers had their own homemade weapons: autoguns, bolt-action carbines, shotguns. Chaos, but dense fire. A brutal firefight began, and Li Qingyu, lying in the middle of a pile of bodies, was afraid to breathe.
About fifteen minutes later, after the dull blast of a grenade, the field fell silent.
He waited five more minutes—silence. His heart beat faster. Had they all gone down?
Opening his eyes, he cautiously looked around—PDF bodies in green helmets mixed with grey-clad rebels. Death everywhere.
"A little snack song..." he whistled under his breath, climbing out of the heap of flesh.
Ignoring the rebels, Li Qingyu rushed to the dead PDF troopers. First trophy—a combat helmet.
Name: PDF combat helmet
Estimated value: 500 fertilizer coupons
Protection level: 3
Ricochet chance: medium
Durability: 30/30
Material: ceramite
Weight: 2.2 kg.
Then he stripped light armour from another corpse.
Name: PDF light armour
Estimated value: 1500 fertilizer coupons
Protection level: 3
Durability: 45/50
Material: ceramite
Weight: 6.2 kg.
Next—an autogun.
Name: Standard PDF autogun
Estimated value: about 3500 fertilizer coupons
Weight: 4.5 kg
Vertical recoil: 68
Horizontal recoil: 52
Ergonomics: 52
Weapon stability: 53
Accuracy: 60
Hip-fire stability: 72
Effective range: 600 m
Muzzle velocity: 1050
Fire mode: auto/semi-auto
Rate of fire: 750
Cartridge caliber: 8.9×55 mm
Shot power: increased.
One of these was worth over three thousand—people would snatch it up instantly! He tossed aside everything unnecessary and started collecting autoguns.
One, two, three, four. Four rifles hung from straps—over twenty kilograms. Breathing grew difficult, but he refused to stop. In the end, reaching the extraction point was part of the game.
"Today's a lucky day!"
He pulled a fifth rifle off a dead trooper and was about to look for the sergeant's body, remembering the lasgun. In Warhammer 40,000 they called them "flashlights," but that was unfair. On a normal battlefield they were terrifying: two hundred shots from one power pack, they punch through a twenty-millimeter steel plate and burn straight through people—on the level of old heavy machine guns!
Three months here, and he still hadn't held a lasgun. He had to find it!
He flipped over dozens of bodies until he heard a rasp behind him. He turned—and met a gaze full of hatred.
"Alive?!"
By the trench wall, bloodied, armour hanging off him, the PDF sergeant sat—alive, lasgun in hand. The barrel pointed straight at Li Qingyu.
Cold ran down his spine. A thought flashed: "Not this! I don't want to lose the loot!"
"Don't shoot! I'm not a reb—"
He didn't finish. A laser shot slashed across his chest. A scorching wave hit, and he was already bracing for respawn...
But his consciousness didn't cut out. There was no pain. Only a faint heat and the smell of burning. Looking down, he realized: the beam had burned through all five autoguns hanging on him and, after exhausting its energy, died on the surface of his armour.
"Damn you!"
Li Qingyu lunged forward, kicked the sergeant off balance, pinned the man's weapon hand under his boot, making him cry out.
The sergeant was badly wounded and exhausted—he couldn't resist. Li Qingyu beat the fight out of him with a series of strikes, yanked a bayonet-knife from the man's belt, and set the blade at his throat.
He didn't try firing the lasgun—who knew if it had a gene-lock? Different worlds did it differently: on some, such weapons fired in чужих hands; on others, they were sealed behind a biometric lock for the owner.
He had already raised his hand, ready to kill and leave, when a System chime sounded in his head:
Ding! Emergency mission: Save Sergeant Rudolf.
Description: Rudolf is a veteran of the Planetary Defence Force, promised promotion to company commander upon successful capture of Trench No. 2563. But the operation failed.
Objective: Deliver Sergeant Rudolf to the PDF defensive line.
Reward: Unlock Extraction Point "Rudolf"—a safe route to the Hideout.
Reward: Unlock Fixer Rudolf—a new trader and source of quests.
Reward: PDF reputation +10.