Chapter 239: The Thawing Trail
The blast gates of the Research Center rumbled softly as the heavy hydraulic lifts raised the steel shutters just enough to clear the roof of the transport truck. Cold mountain air swept into the staging area, carrying the sharp scent of damp soil and melting snow from the valley pass outside.
Han Zheng climbed into the driver’s seat of the transport truck, his boots settling onto the pedals as the diesel engine roared to life with a deep, reverberating growl. Lin Qing slid into the front passenger seat, adjusting her sidearm and securing her seatbelt.
Behind them, Su Yun, Song Yan, and Old Wang sat in the covered flatbed, their weapons resting against their knees alongside extra supply crates and tie-down straps.
"Watch the corners," Han Zheng called back over his shoulder, engaging the heavy four-wheel drive. "The thaw has turned the lower valley road into a river of liquid mud and slush. It’s going to be a rough ride."
The transport truck lurched forward, its tires gripping the gravel as it rolled out of the Research Center gates and onto the thawing mountain pass.
The drive down the winding valley road was treacherous and unpredictable. Thick icicles hung precariously from the dark granite cliffs overhead, breaking off and shattering across the windshield with sharp, gun-like cracks. Swelling streams of ice-cold meltwater rushed down the rocky gullies, threatening to wash out sections of the dirt road, but Han Zheng handled the heavy steering wheel with practiced, unshakeable precision.
𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮
In the truck, despite the heavy jolts and sways of the vehicle, Lin Qing and Su Yun maintained an effortless, unspoken rhythm.
Without uttering a single word over the engine noise, the two women communicated through a fluid sequence of silent, old-world military hand signals. When Lin Qing checked the rearview mirror and flashed two fingers toward the side flap, Su Yun instantly adjusted her posture, tracking the high ridge through the truck’s rear sight line without missing a beat. When Su Yun tapped her rifle barrel twice, signaling a blind bend ahead, Lin Qing immediately adjusted her forward scan, covering the passenger approach vector.
Song Yan, sitting across from Old Wang in the flatbed, watched the two women with quiet admiration in his eyes.
"Look at those two," Song Yan murmured under his breath to Old Wang, leaning in so the wind wouldn’t carry his voice. "They don’t even need to speak. They know exactly where the other is looking before the truck even rounds the curve."
Old Wang adjusted the strap of his sniper rifle with a nod, the same amazement on his weathered face.
Two hours of grueling driving brought the transport truck to a halt behind a natural rock outcrop overlooking the lower valley pass, roughly twelve hundred meters out from their target.
Han Zheng killed the engine, letting the truck coast silently into the shadow of the cliff face to conceal its large profile. The strike team dismounted quickly, their boots sinking an inch into the cold mud as they moved up the rocky ridge on foot.
Lin Qing dropped to her stomach behind a cluster of snow-dusted boulders, pulling out a pair of high-powered military binoculars. Han Zheng slid in beside her on the right, while Su Yun crept up on her left, unfurling her rifle’s bipod and setting the heavy weapon down on a flat rock.
"Target straight ahead, twelve hundred meters," Lin Qing murmured, her voice steady and quiet.
Down in the shadows of the lower valley, tucked snugly against the sheer cliff face of a dead-end ravine, sat the automated supply depot.
It was a compact, heavily reinforced concrete bunker with corrugated steel roofing, painted in dark, low-visibility matte gray. Half-buried under melting snow drifts, it looked almost abandoned at first glance—except for the faint green status lights glowing near the central loading dock.
"Sun Hao’s intel was dead on," Han Zheng said, examining the bunker through his optic scope. "Low thermal signature. The main reactor is idling on standby mode."
"Look at the perimeter defenses," Su Yun pointed out, her eye pressed against her sniper scope as she slowly adjusted the focus dial. "Two automated motion-tracking heavy turret nests mounted on the upper corners of the loading bay. They’re scanning on a forty-five degree arc."
"And there’s our biggest problem," Lin Qing added, pointing her binoculars toward the sky above the depot. "A light recon drone. It’s flying a tight two-hundred-meter patrol loop right above the perimeter fence."
The automated drone was small, oval-shaped, and practically silent, hovering through the air on four low-noise rotors. A glowing red optical lens beneath its belly swept over the approach paths every ninety seconds, searching for heat signatures or movement.
"If that drone spots us or detects a kinetic discharge, it might send a high-frequency emergency ping back to main command before we can even reach the door," Song Yan warned, crawling up behind them. "How do we take it out without triggering the alarm?"
Lin Qing looked over at Su Yun, a subtle, confident glint in her eyes. "Yun, can you blind its optical lens from here before it completes its turn?"
Su Yun gave a dry, confident smirk, her fingers making small, precise adjustments to the windage dial on her scope. "Twelve hundred meters, shifting mountain crosswind, and a moving three-inch glass target? Please, Qing. You’re insulting me."
"Song Yan, Han Zheng, and I will slide down the ravine during the ninety-second blind spot," Lin Qing laid out the plan quickly. "The moment the drone turns toward our path, Su Yun takes out the main lens. That’ll give us ten seconds of complete optical blackout to reach the exterior power relay on the side wall and sever the main grid."
Old Wang settled into position right beside Su Yun, pulling out a spotter’s scope to call the wind. "Overwatch established, Vice-Commander. We’ll keep the sky clear."
"Move on my mark," Han Zheng commanded quietly.
The team waited patiently behind the ridge until the automated drone reached the far edge of its patrol loop, pivoting its red optical lens away from the northern ravine.
"Mark!" Han Zheng whispered.
In an instant, Han Zheng, Lin Qing, and Song Yan slid down the muddy slope of the ravine, their boots making almost no sound as they utilized the low cover of rock outcroppings and dense bushes.
They moved with explosive speed, covering fifty meters in seconds flat, pressing their backs hard against the cold concrete exterior wall of the depot just as the ninety-second timer reached its end.
Above them on the high ridge, Su Yun held her breath. Her index finger rested lightly against the cold steel of the trigger. Through her optic sight, the tiny red lens of the hovering drone began to swivel back toward the northern approach path—right where Lin Qing’s team was hugging the wall.
Breathe out. Half-lung. Hold.
Click.
Su Yun squeezed the trigger. The suppressed rifle emitted only a low, muffled pfft that was instantly swallowed by the sound of the wind and the rushing mountain streams.
Twelve hundred meters away, the high-density armor-piercing round whistled through the freezing air, striking the exact center of the drone’s glowing red optical lens. The glass shattered instantly into a shower of sparks. The drone wobbled violently in mid-air, its optical feed going pitch black, freezing its internal processing logic as it attempted to run an automated diagnostic check.
"Now!" Lin Qing hissed down below.
Before the drone’s secondary sensors could trigger an emergency alert, Lin Qing darted around the corner of the depot wall, reaching the exterior power junction box. She jammed her knife into the heavy seam, prying open the metal cover with a sharp crack of tearing hinges.
Without missing a beat, she pulled a pair of insulated wire-cutters from her belt, severing the primary power conduit in one clean, decisive snip.
A shower of bright blue sparks erupted from the junction box as the circuit died.
Instantly, the two automated heavy turrets mounted above the loading bay lost power, their heavy barrels slumping downward as their tracking motors went dead. The glowing green status lights across the loading dock flickered out, plunging the exterior of the depot into total darkness.
Han Zheng stepped up beside her, grabbing the manual emergency release bar on the main loading bay door. With a deep grunt of physical exertion, his shoulders tensed as he forced the heavy steel lever down, breaking the hydraulic vacuum.
The ground-level loading door popped open with a heavy metallic thud, sliding up just high enough for them to squeeze through.
Lin Qing pulled her sidearm, clicking off the safety as she peered into the dark, silent interior of the automated supply depot. The cold air inside smelled heavily of ozone, machine oil, hydraulic fluid, and long-preserved field rations.
"Perimeter clear," Lin Qing reported quietly into her comms unit, her voice barely a whisper against the static. "Su Yun, Old Wang, maintain overwatch on the ridge. Call out any movement down the main valley road."
"Copy that, Vice-Commander," Su Yun’s voice crackled softly through the earpiece. "Ridge is secure. You’ve got five minutes before the drone’s failure to ping triggers a secondary diagnostic sweep."
Han Zheng, Lin Qing, and Song Yan slipped through the opened loading door one by one, stepping onto the cold concrete floor of the facility. As the heavy door settled into place behind them, sealing out the wind, the low hum of internal emergency back-up batteries clicked on, casting a dim, ambient red glow across rows upon rows of sealed supply crates.