A Mercenary's War

Chapter 90: Retreat

Translated by: kevin1782

Edited by: Isalee

Gao Yang was wearing a bulletproof vest and could already defend against 9mm Parabellum bullets[1] at close range. Especially after the gun had the silencer installed, the muzzle velocity and firepower was decreased by a huge fold. Hence, not only were Gao Yang and Tribo’s lives safe from danger, the pain was also greatly lessened. Of course, the terrible pain wasn’t avoidable. If the area where the shot made contact became bluish-black or had broken bones or ligaments, that was considered normal.

Hearing what Tribo said about no blood despite being shot three times, Gao Yang relaxed immediately. But when he heard Tribo’s angry and anguished shout-out for the last sentence, he couldn’t hold it in as he bawled in laughter.

The moment he laughed was the moment he noticed the pain in his front and back heart area. Hence his laughs became screams of agony.

Tribo was helped up by Grolev. After standing up, Tribo straightaway raised his volume, “Quick, quick, quick! Give me a pot of water, I gotta wash up first.”

Seeing Tribo stand up, Grolev’s face became really weird. When he turned his head around he covered his nose with his hand at the same time.

When Jin went to help Gao Yang up, he immediately didn’t feel any tinge of pain as he saw the thing on the man’s back — the man that he had just shot. He just pointed at the cadaver. “Hurry, quickly pa.s.s the gun over to me. Shotgun, I’ve waited so long for it.”

Jin was urged by Gao Yang and he resignedly shook his head. He let go of his support for Gao Yang and pointed at Gao Yang ‘down-there’ and pouted his mouth to the side. “If there isn’t anything else, pull up your pants first.”

Gao Yang’s face turned into that of trepidation and consternation as he quickly lifted his trousers that were at his ankles. Jin on the other hand turned to the man Gao Yang had shot to pick up the gun.

The man Gao Yang shot was lying sideways on the floor. The M92 in his hand had dropped to the ground but the shotgun on his back caused Gao Yang’s eyes to sparkle. While he was happy, he was also rejoicing at his luck that the person he killed was using a silenced pistol and not the shotgun on his back.

Jin meticulously searched the three bodies in the yard. He picked up three M92 Beretta pistols with silencers, a FAMAS automatic a.s.sault rifle, an MP5 submachine gun and of course Gao Yang’s baby: a shotgun. 

Seeing the loot Jin got, Tribo who had been ranting and scolding stopped too. He shouted, “Hey, hey, give me the MP5, give it to me. I can take the MP5 as my secondary weapon in the future.”

Jin took a pile of parts and pieces of stuff and walked before Tribo. He glanced at him once and wrinkled his eyebrows. “You stink! Can you wear your pants first?!”

Tribo’s expression was that of anxiety, “Wear my *ss! Putting on the pants means dirtying my pants. Will you wash it for me? And give me the MP5 quickly. Then help me get some water, I still got a lot of water in my bottle, fast, fast, fast.”

Jin handed over the MP5 to Tribo. Tribo extended his hands to receive it but this movement shocked the painful area on his body. “Ai-yo!” Tribo’s hand that was holding the MP5 became shaky. He p.i.s.sed off Grolev who had to support him and pinch his nose at the same time. He didn’t care anymore and let his hand go. He quickly went to the side and sucked in two breaths with force.

Jin gave the shotgun and the shotgun rounds to Gao Yang. Then he plucked out the gun holster on his thighs, threw the holster with the gun still in it to the side altogether and said, “Just in time to change a new pistol, silenced pistols are too hard to come by. Coincidentally there’s not much ammo left for my a.s.sault rifle, so I’ll just lower my threshold and use this FAMAS first. There’s quite a lot of ammo left in this gun. By the way, there’s a few grenades that I didn’t pick up, offensive ones, not a lot of power. I also didn’t have s.p.a.ce to contain them.”

It was just extra anyway, so Gao Yang didn’t care one bit about what Jin wanted to leave behind. His attention was all on the shotgun that only recently came into o his hands.

This shotgun was a good thing. There was an inscription on the body indicating that it was an Italian-made Benelli M4 Super 90[2], American marines were the biggest clients of this gun. The military named it the M1014.

A semi-automatic. The handle and the gun herself were all Picatinny-railed[3], with an extendable forward grip. The greatest ammunition capacity was seven plus one shots. She could contain in any sequence different types of ammunition of varying firepower. She could also be used with the 2.75-inch and 3-inch number 12 buckshots. She was a cla.s.sic wartype tactical shotgun and the most popular civilian shotgun. 

Gao Yang was beyond jubilant after getting the Benelli M4. And what made him more joyous was the fact that a belt of twenty-five bullets was still full. Not only did the bullet belt have buckshots, but there also were three breaching rounds. These were specially used to breach door-locks, very useful for opening doors.

Although he did not know how much this military-legitimate-graded M4 was worth after taking this from these soldiers, Gao Yang knew that a civilian-grade M4 cost fifteen hundred USD. And not to mention that the prices now were inflated, they were also not allowed to use vertical forward grips.

Gao Yang looked at his shotgun. Jin was busy strapping pistol holsters to his left and right thighs. He decided to bring both pistols. And Grolev went to get his babe RPD. That left was Tribo by himself. He stood there and smiled wickedly at the MP5 while caressing her at the same time, not caring about his bare bottom shining out there along with the odor emanating from his body.

Just as the four of them were inundated in their separate joys, Green Mamba hurried over after hearing the news. Right after he got to the yard, he anxiously said, “What’s the problem? F*ck! Hare, what are you doing? Are you mad?”

“Ah, what’s wrong? I Ci-Ao, Toad, get me water man!”

Tribo’s face was red all over from the shame. He wanted to raise his pants but he didn’t dare to. Out of exasperation, he could only shifted forward two steps and then squat down. Only then did Jin remember about Tribo who was still ‘sun-tanning’ at the side. He patted his head and quickly hurried to get water to save poor Tribo.

Green Mamba also brought with him a dozen plus people. Everybody was crying with laughter and stood over there bawling till their bellies ached. Gao Yang was thankful that he luckily couldn’t pa.s.s the motion. And hence he didn’t tread Tribo’s awkward fate. It was really a lucky thing packaged by a great unfortunate event.

Tribo was as mad as a wet hen but helpless. He wanted to raise his trousers but then that would mean wearing sh*tty trousers. Tribo finally pushed down the urge to pull up his trousers. He roared in not-so-well-trained English, “We all men here, see what see, didn’t see before? Not looking how your guys doing still?” 

Green Mamba’s face turned only then. He hurriedly led his men and ran away. Jin also finally brought the water Tribo urgently needed. The three then turned their faces to the side. As they heard Tribo’s cussing and water-flow sounds, they really tried their best to not laugh.

Gao Yang was facing a tough time holding back his laughter; his shoulders were shaking here and there and even his front and back were trembling with excruciating pain.

Finally, Tribo raised his pants and heaved a long sigh. He laughed bitterly, “Alrighty, turn around, ugh, embarra.s.sed myself so much. Took three shots but I at least got an MP5. Worth it I guess.”

Gao Yang tried to do some chest-broadening exercises and found that his chest and back area would hurt whenever he raised his elbows. But if he was only walking, then there wasn’t much of an effect. He laughed then. “Alright, since there wasn’t anything else then let’s hurry up and pack up. We can’t stay here, we gotta quickly shift.”

They went back to the house with the fastest speed possible and packed up the equipment they left in the house. Just as they packed up everything nicely, Green Mamba hurriedly ran back.

Green Mamba’s face was extremely ugly. He anxiously spoke the moment he saw Gao Yang. “Our people were attacked by the French. They’re very good and they killed six of our men soundlessly. My men saw that at least four rushed out and they even brought two cadavers.”

Gao Yang nodded and fearfully said, “They’re really scary. If Hare and I didn’t wear bulletproof vests we’d be dead for sure, and if the grenades they threw weren’t offensive but defensive, we’d be heavily injured even if we were not dead. Seeing their battle tactics and style, they should be Commandos, but what I don’t understand is, why did they attack in broad daylight just like that? And in this kind of situation? Even if they could get the territory we currently occupy, so what? The French have no reason to do this man.”

Green Mamba furiously said, “I just got notified that the G.o.d-d*mned government troops already gave up on Misurata, and hence everyone’s retreating. Even the television channels were broadcasting their retreats live. But we’re waiting here for new missions still. There isn’t no G.o.d-d*mned new mission, and we are now located in protruding area. That’s why we were attacked! G.o.d-d*mn it, how dare n.o.body notify us that we were retreating, we were given upon. No! We’ve been betrayed!”

Gao Yang’s face turned 180 degrees. He was stupefied. “Really? Then aren’t we in great danger now? We gotta retreat ASAP man.”

Green Mamba nodded and said, “That’s right, we’re definitely gonna retreat. We’re rallying our men. When we’re done falling in, we’ll immediately retreat, but we gotta be careful — the French got three bodies here, I think they’d definitely come back to s.n.a.t.c.h the bodies back and avenge them.”

The situation was very serious already, not to mention that the important thing coming up would surely be retreating. Gao Yang and the rest could have left immediately, but they didn’t do that. Although Coleman Company’s men needed to use up some time to rally people up, great power would come with many men. Moving out with Coleman would definitely be safer than the four of them alone.

While waiting for the rally, Green Mamba saw an M92 in Jin"s hand and then the two holsters at both thighs with one in each holster. He pointed at Jin"s gun in-hand, "Awesome thing, guns with silencers are really hard to come by, can you give me one?"

Jin retrieved three silenced M92s and left himself two. No one wanted the remaining gun. Gao Yang loved his M1911 while Tribo was resolute and refused to change his P226. And this silenced M92 could at least sell for more than a thousand USD.  But now they were quite familiar with Green Mamba, and they didn’t have a bad relationship either. Since Green opened his mouth, Jin would surely not be petty.

Jin didn’t say anything else and threw the gun towards Green Mamba. And when Green Mamba put her in his bag, he took out a combat knife at the same time and threw it to Jin with the sheath included. He solemnly said, “This is what I gained, a Chris Reeve’s Green Beret[4].  A pretty good nife, I intended to keep it for myself, but I see that you seem not to have a knife. So now she’s[5] yours.”

Translator’s note(s):