Free Web NovelChapter 97: The Blueprint of the Ambush
The heavy, stifling silence inside the room stretched for several agonizing seconds, thick with the humid, white steam drifting lazily from the open washroom door.
Lin Qing felt her brain grind to a violent, unprecedented halt. Her gaze remained fixed for a fraction of a second too long on the damp, chiseled contours of Han Zheng’s chest before her mind finally kicked back online.
Forcing her facial expression to snap back into a mask of rigid, robotic professionalism, she violently pivoted on her heel. She turned her back to him, her posture stiff as a steel rod, her unblinking eyes staring straight ahead at the bare wall outside the threshold.
"I have the primary intelligence report," Lin Qing stated. Her voice carried a fraction higher than its usual cool, detached cadence, a subtle tell she couldn’t entirely suppress. She cleared her throat quickly, adjusting the collar of her jacket with unnecessary, sharp precision. "I will wait for you in the briefing room down the hall."
Behind her, a low, deep chuckle vibrated through Han Zheng’s broad chest, the sound rich and genuinely amused. The sheer, uncharacteristic panic of his usually unflappable, stoic wife was the most entertaining thing he had witnessed since the old world collapsed.
He didn’t rush his movements. He slowly pulled a fresh shirt over his broad shoulders, the heavy fabric rustling as he stepped closer to the doorway, intentionally letting his heavy boots echo against the floorboards.
"You can turn around now," Han Zheng teased softly, his deep voice laced with a rare, dynamic amusement as he zipped up his insulated winter vest. "I’m fully dressed. Though I didn’t realize delivering an emergency report required breaking down the door without a single knock."
Lin Qing turned around slowly, her face entirely composed once more, completely burying the internal giddiness and brief embarrassment from moments prior under a layer of absolute gravity. She ignored his playful teasing entirely, her sharp, dark eyes locking onto his with seriousness. "We have an active wiretap on Gao Feng’s flagship. Dr. Zhou and I successfully reverse-engineered the communication frequency."
The lingering amusement vanished from Han Zheng’s features instantly, replaced by the cold, razor-sharp focus of an elite military commander. He stepped out of the room, pulling the heavy door shut behind him with a dull click. "Show me everything."
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Ten minutes later, the entire core roster of the facility’s elite team was assembled in the dim, shadowed layout of the briefing room. The ambient blue light radiating from the master terminal illuminated the grim faces of the soilders.
Lin Qing stood at the head of the map table, her hand pressing a command key on the recording console. First, she played the low-frequency grunt channel. Lin Tao’s bitter, whiny, and frantic voice filled the room, his words echoing off the concrete walls as he ranted about Gao Feng’s arrogance and actively tried to convince the low-ranking mercenaries to steal the vehicles and desert into the mountains.
Ah Hua let out a rough, mocking snort, shaking his head. "That pathetic idiot Lin Tao is practically doing our job for us. He’s tearing their baseline morale to absolute shreds from the inside out."
"Let him talk," Han Zheng murmured, his large hands resting on the edge of the table as his dark eyes fixed onto the glowing digital topography of the mountain pass. "What about Gao Feng’s actual command channel? What is the main force doing?"
Lin Qing adjusted the audio dial with a smooth twist, playing the high-security command intercept. Gao Feng’s voice cut through the small speakers, dictating his final, desperate offensive protocol: "The secondary heavy-artillery units must be fully operational and positioned at the lower ridge as soon as possible. The vanguard’s loss was an acceptable statistical anomaly. The mountain bunker’s structural integrity cannot withstand a sustained, high-explosive bombardment targeted directly at their lower ventilation shafts and secondary blast gates. If the doors won’t breach, we will bury them alive inside their own mountain."
The room went completely cold. In a world overrun by the infected, heavy military artillery was a terrifying, absolute rarity. Gao Feng didn’t have heavy tanks or fighter jets—those high-maintenance assets had long been abandoned or destroyed when the major metropolises fell—but his rogue mercenary faction had probably salvaged old, heavy-caliber mortar arrays and towed artillery pieces during the early days of the collapse. If those devastating weapons managed to reach the lower ridge overlooking the sanctuary, they could systematically collapse the entrance, sealing every single one of them inside a concrete tomb.
"We absolutely cannot let those heavy weapons set up a perimeter," Lieutenant Chen said, his fingers tightening into a fist as a brief, ominous spark of thermal heat flared across his knuckles. "But we have a severe limitation. We only have two armored transport vehicles and an SUV. If we try a head-on vehicular charge down the steep mountain path against a fortified artillery line, we won’t really stand a chance."
"We aren’t charging them head-on, Lieutenant," Lin Qing said, her finger extending to tap a specific, incredibly narrow bottleneck on the map—a treacherous, ice-slicked gorge path known locally as the Dead Man’s Switch. "Gao Feng is moving his heavy, towed artillery pieces up the winding mountain path using his remaining armored vehicles. Because of the bitter winter weather, the freezing fog, and the deep snow drifts, those heavy vehicles have to travel in a single, painfully slow, single-file line along the literal edge of the ravine. They have zero room to maneuver or turn around."
Han Zheng leaned further over the table, a dark, dangerous comprehension dawning within his mind as he analyzed the narrow geometry of the gorge. "An ambush. We intercept them ’before’ they ever reach the lower ridge, while they are still struggling up the icy incline with their heavy loads."
"Exactly," Lin Qing nodded, her words taking complete and total control of the room’s energy. "We utilize our environment against them. Da Yong, you will immediately take the workshop shift and modify our trucks with reinforced, heavy-duty front plow plates. We will position the primary striking team along the high ridges overlooking the bottleneck, completely hiding our presence in the raging blizzard."
She paused, her sharp eyes sweeping over the assembled roster with calculating care. "However, we cannot leave the facility completely vulnerable while our main combat force is out on the frozen mountain. We must allocate someone to remain behind in the core of the research center."
Han Zheng nodded firmly in agreement, his voice cutting in to reinforce the security protocol. "Sun Hao is already in the residential suite securing the children, but we need someone with technical and defensive capabilities running the central command hub. Zhou Ming, you will stay behind in the research center. Your priority is to monitor the automated internal perimeter sensors, handle the primary communications loop with Dr. Zhou, and act as our medical lifeline if things go sideways outside on the cliffs."
"Understood, Commander," Zhou Ming replied, nodding with absolute seriousness. "I’ll keep the emergency medical bay on standby and the internal security gates on maximum lockdown the moment you clear the blast doors."
With the home front officially secured, Lin Qing turned her attention back to the map, delegating the combat roles. "Old Wang, you will take the highest sniper position overlooking the entrance of the gorge. Your absolute priority is to shoot the lead driver of the enemy’s lead vehicle the exact microsecond they enter the narrowest part of the bottleneck. The sudden, high-speed crash will completely block the road, trapping the entire heavy convoy behind it with nowhere to go."
"With pleasure, Sister-in-law," Old Wang grinned, a spark in his eyes as he gently patted the polished stock of his high-caliber sniper rifle. "I’ll put the round right through his visor."
"The exact moment the convoy stalls," Lin Qing continued, turning her gaze toward the powered elites, "Ah Hua and Lieutenant Chen will unleash a coordinated, devastating barrage from the high ridge down into the canyon. Lieutenant Chen, you will use your thermal manipulation core to directly ignite the exposed fuel bladders of their vehicles. Ah Hua, you will handle the heavy squad weapons to suppress and neutralize any mercenary attempting to spill out into the snow to form a defensive line. Xiao Li, you will remain on standby directly in front of them, using your advanced stone armor to act as a frontline shield for our firing line in case they manage to return blind fire upward."
"And what about the remaining mobile force?" Han Zheng asked.
"You, me, and Da Yong will be positioned inside our trucks, completely hidden further down the reverse slope of the gorge," Lin Qing replied, her dark eyes locking with his in a silent moment of shared understanding. "Once the enemy line is completely fractured, panicked, and pinned down by the high-ridge fire, Da Yong will drive our heavy transports straight into their exposed flank, cutting their forces in half and physically pushing their heavy artillery pieces off the slippery edge into the deep ravine below."
Hearing the sheer, absolute perfection of the ambush strategy, a fierce, electric energy swept through the hardened soldiers in the room.
They only had transport vehicles and limited manpower compared to Gao Feng’s remaining army, but by utilizing the brutal terrain, the midnight winter storm, and the total element of surprise, they were going to turn Gao Feng’s heavy artillery into a massive, useless pile of twisted metal at the bottom of an icy canyon before it could ever fire a single shell.
Han Zheng stood up straight, his tall, muscular frame radiating a cold, unyielding power that seemed to fill the entire briefing room. He looked at his men, his voice echoing with absolute command. "You heard the strategy. Everyone, prepare your gear, check your ammunition, and verify your weapon loadouts. Da Yong, get the steel plows welded onto the trucks immediately. Let’s go end this siege before the sun rises."
"Yes, Commander!" the men roared in unison, their voices echoing off the walls as they sprinted out of the briefing room to execute the blueprint of the perfect ambush.
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