Chapter 315 05.0314: "Comradeship"

The bonfire was burning, the firewood was crackling, and the unknown wood exuded a faint resin aroma. The fresh natural smell soothed people's hearts silently.

The flames were sometimes still and sometimes leaping violently, like vibrant creatures. The shadows cast by the fire on the cave walls silently outlined the shadows of the surrounding objects.

The largest piece was the sleeping bag that contained Horatio and Louise.

Louise stood back to back with him, feeling his warm body temperature.

It was cold inside the sleeping bag, and Horatio knew as soon as he came in that she had been woken by the cold.

Louise was in another corner, curled up, her hands and feet cold.

Horatio deliberately kept a gentleman's distance, but a cool breeze blew across Louise's back from the gap, making her lean towards him involuntarily because of the cold.

"Sorry." Horatio realized that his self-righteous gentlemanly manner had chilled her.

She was now only wearing very thin clothes, a set of training underwear for Cadian female soldiers.

Horatio was much the same.

When her smooth back pressed against him, the coldness was quickly dispelled by the combined body temperatures of both of them.

"Do you miss Cardia?" After a long silence, Horatio saw that Louise was still wide awake, staring at the fire in a daze, looking like she was worried about something, so he asked.

"Today when I was in the water, I kept thinking that I couldn't die here. I had to return to Cadia and fight the enemy there, truly fulfilling the oath I made when I joined Kashejin, fighting for Cadia and protecting our mother planet."

She pursed her dry lips:

“This was the first time I felt the fear of death. This fear came from a worthless death. The guilt of failing the Emperor brought me a deep sense of shame.

Although it was not my original intention, I failed to fulfill the oath I made when I joined Kashejin to defend Cadia. I did not fulfill my duty and was taken to Abyssal Port by my parents.

In every sleepless night, I wondered countless times whether the zombie plague was the punishment from the God-Emperor for breaking my oath.

The more she spoke, the more she shivered, and a chill slowly seeped into Horatio.

He turned around and put his left hand around her. He reached over her arms and held her twisted hands tightly with his warm big hands, stroking the thin calluses on them soothingly. The iron hand on his right side slightly turned on the heating function to add a bit more warmth to the sleeping bag.

"Don't think too much. No matter where you fight, you are fulfilling your oath." Horatio said seriously:
"Every enemy of the Emperor you kill contributes to the ongoing and future wars in Cadia, reducing the hostile forces they face and alleviating the pressure on your fellow comrades."

"Really? But, they are everywhere..."

"It's true, I'm sure." Horatio affirmed:
"Once upon a time, the bandit leader Abaddon launched the twelfth Black Crusade to the Gothic Sector. It has been more than 800 years since then. That guy will definitely come back again. In my opinion, his target is likely to be Cadia.

Therefore, every traitor we kill now is likely to reduce the pressure on Cadia and save your compatriots from bloodshed and sacrifice. "

"Cardia stands firm." Louise turned around, staring firmly into his eyes with her iconic purple eyes, and said reflexively.

"Well, Cardia stands firm."

After receiving the response, she returned to the state of attachment to warmth and pressed closer to him, facing him.

"Thank you, Horatio, you are really inspiring. You made me feel the 'comradeship' in our culture."

"How do you Cadians describe 'comradeship'?" Horatio asked with a smile, looking at her purple eyes that looked like crystal in the dark.

Louise looked away embarrassedly, and her voice dropped suddenly to a mosquito-like whisper. If they were not face to face, he might not have been able to hear it.

"Two people will never abandon each other at any time, and will jointly decide everything they face, and live and die together."

"Remember our first mission?" Horatio looked into her eyes and recalled the past:
"I was fighting the stinky can at the time. I thought I was going to die, and then you rushed over, cut your hand with a knife, and poured your blood on the thing, buying me some time.

At that time, you were my team leader, and I was just a corporal recruit.

You told me you would never abandon me, and you took a blow from that sick pig, shattering your ceramite breastplate and breaking two ribs."

Louise's eyes widened slightly at his words.

"I said I would take you to see the moon. Later, I will definitely take you back to Cadia. I will definitely fulfill the vows I made, just like you said you would not abandon me." Horatio continued.

Beside the warm campfire, the two of them kept each other warm. The distance was so close that Louise could even clearly count Horatio's eyelashes, and naturally she could also see the most subtle and instinctive expressions when he spoke.

The scenes of memories instantly emerged from the depths of her mind, and Louise's eyes flickered.

At this moment, she seemed to be back on the plague ship heading to Abyss Port. She was covered in blood, holding a sharp blade, and there was a young man in front of her, reaching out his hand to her.

My heart, which had been shrouded in a sense of guilt for a long time, finally felt a sense of warmth and relief.

Just like before, when she was traveling through the plague ship corpses and recalling the unbearable past, he held her hand and walked forward.

"Horatio..." She parted her red lips and whispered softly, "Are you...willing to form a comradeship with me?"

"Of course, Captain." Horatio's hot breath rubbed her ears together, making them red like vermilion fruits.

Louise gently touched her smooth forehead to his collarbone and buried her face in his strong chest.

He kissed the top of her head.

Gradually, Louise raised her head, and her arms wrapped around him like vines, and her two soft lips touched each other gently and delicately.

She felt his warmth personally, and the sleeping bag no longer needed the iron hand's heating.

At this moment, two hot hearts blended together, resisting the cold wind and bringing warmth to the cold bodies.

The training clothes were soaked again. But this time, the source was no longer the cold lake water. Outside the cave, the blizzard was howling, but inside the cave it was warm as usual.

the next day.

The engine of the Taurus assault vehicle roared outside the cave.

Archie Cuthbert Collingwood used the butt of his rifle to break through the thick snow that almost completely blocked the entrance to the cave.

Suddenly, the butt of the gun hit a hard object, and a "pale woman" covered in blood stood motionless in the ice and snow.

Until...her lifeless eyes moved.

Archie was startled and instantly had his finger on the trigger.

"Relax, Archie, that's the robot servant I assigned to stand guard, come in." A familiar voice of Horatio came from the cave.

Collingwood stepped into the cave and took off his helmet, only to smell a burst of fragrance.

In front of him were two fully armed people. The most essential part of the huge strange fish, the white part, had been cut into dozens of large pieces and were skewered on peeled tree branches and roasted over firewood.

The steak is glossy with oil and has a crispy and crunchy exterior. Even with just the simplest salt and spices for seasoning, the aroma it exudes is mouth-watering.

"Good morning, scouts. Before we start our mission, would you like to try some of this planet's specialty fish and have a brief tactical seminar?"

Horatio adjusted the makeshift grill and greeted the newcomers with a smile, as if they were not deep in the midst of danger-ridden enemies, but instead were camping in the snow on some garden world.

A dozen scouts followed Collingwood into the cave. They shook off the snow on their bodies and sat down beside the firewood pile.

“This seems to be a large meat fish specially raised on this planet.

After being adjusted by geneticists, they only need scraps and defective products of agricultural products to reproduce and thrive. The meat is excellent, but because they are too fierce and aggressive, large fishing boats with powered harpoons are used every time they are caught. How did you catch it? Captain Horatio. "Archie looked at the huge dead fish skeleton beside him and asked in disbelief.

"I had a fight with this thing underwater. It nearly swallowed me and Louise. Luckily it tasted pretty good, or it would have been a big loss."

Horatio casually brushed aside the previous thrilling incident between the two, took out the data tablet, and got straight to the point:

"Our target is the largest orbital anti-aircraft fortress in this area. I believe you should have seen the silhouette of that giant cannon."

"That's right. Even through the blizzard, you can see the gun barrel pointing straight into the sky from more than ten kilometers away. It's really huge."

Archie turned around and looked outside the cave, as if he had already seen the target location, that huge cannon that was several kilometers long, raised high, and bombarding the sky in orbit.

There is no doubt that this is a masterpiece left behind by the Iron Warriors of the rebellious legion.

"More than a dozen artillery batteries form a 300 square kilometer air defense cluster on this regional plate to ensure the safety of the airspace in the southern part of the continent.

We have now airdropped into the 'interior' of this huge defense cluster.

Judging from yesterday's firepower reconnaissance, the periphery of this defense area is mainly composed of scattered small anti-aircraft artillery batteries, and the main equipment is Hydra anti-aircraft artillery."

Horatio said as he marked a few light yellow marks on the data pad.

"Going to the inner ring, you will find the large-caliber anti-aircraft artillery. The main equipment here is the 133mm dual-purpose anti-aircraft gun with a ground-shaking gun, as well as some Sky Eagle-type anti-aircraft macro guns that were captured after the fall of the city. The range is about 40 kilometers."

Horatio moved his fingertips to mark an orange area.

He continued, "In the innermost layer, there is only one heavy anti-aircraft fortress. This fortress covers an area of ​​about 50 square kilometers and adopts a bastion structure.

There are at least 210 rebel troops stationed there, and their main artillery is a twin-mounted mm and above atmospheric anti-aircraft heavy artillery, as well as a twin-mounted orbital bombardment cannon with a caliber similar to that of the ship-borne macro cannon.

This huge cannon is the only thing that can actually threaten the Astra Militarum orbital landing ships and our low-orbit support ships."

He drew a bloody mark.

"So our battle plan is to directly destroy the anti-aircraft artillery along the way from the periphery, and finally attack the heavy anti-aircraft fortresses?" Louise asked while looking at the holographic briefing.

“No, as long as the enemy commander is not stupid, he can determine our location through the lost artillery and roughly estimate the maneuvering time for us to reach the next target.

As long as one of the nearby artillery batteries loses contact, they will immediately go on alert.

After they went on armed alert, there was no way that a dozen of us could defeat the hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in the fortress.

The weather and the threatening orbital bombardment macro-cannons cut off our ability to call for orbital bombardment and air strike support."

"So, we go directly to the heavy anti-aircraft fortress?" Archie asked, guessing what Horatio was thinking.

“That’s right, the enemy only knows that we landed between the outer and inner rings.

In this kind of blizzard weather, if there is no power armor and special thermal insulation shell, people will directly suffer from hypothermia and freeze to death.

Moreover, only there is a large-scale climate control system available.

So, they would never have thought that we would not only be alive, but would also skip the artillery batteries along the way and go straight to Huanglong." Horatio sneered as he pointed at the data tablet.

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(End of this chapter)