Jiang Ye’s headset crackled, and Li Nannan’s voice came through.
“The Mir have opened a wormhole above Crane Star. A large fleet will descend shortly. Air force, prepare for engagement! Ground troops, rescue as many people as possible. After rescuing them, do not send them to the airport; transfer them outside the city to open spaces! Large cities will be the Mir’s targets!”
“If you see the enemy, kill them all! No prisoners, no survivors!”
Jiang Ye immediately activated the squad channel, shouting, “Did everyone hear the notification?”
“Heard!” his subordinates replied in disarray.
“Hurry up, everyone. Save one more person, that’s one more. Let’s get this done as fast as possible!” Jiang Ye said.
He rushed into the residential building, breaking down doors one after another, carrying out unconscious residents like a firefighter rescuing people from a blaze.
The entire building was searched quickly. A total of 120 people were rescued, filling the rescue vehicles to capacity.
Jiang Ye, sweating profusely, got into a vehicle, pushed the speed to the maximum, and sped towards the outskirts of the city.
Five kilometers outside the city, there was a patch of lush green grass.
Jiang Ye carried the people from the vehicle down one by one and laid them flat on the grass.
In the distance, several alien black yaks were grazing. They raised their heads, looked at the people laid out on the grass, and slowly approached hesitantly.
Jiang Ye picked up his assault rifle and fired a burst without a word, killing one of the yaks. The other yaks turned and fled.
“All rescue vehicles, discuss among yourselves. Try to gather all rescued people in one place and leave one person to guard,” Jiang Ye opened the squad channel. “There are many wild beasts in the wilderness, and the sick are unconscious. We can’t let them be eaten by beasts.”
“Share your locations on the vehicle map! I just brought a carload of sick people out of the city. I’ll find an open space to mark later,” Che Zhen said.
“Come to my location, I’ll mark it,” Jiang Ye replied.
He got into the vehicle, clicked on the driver’s seat screen, and marked the location on the electronic map, noting it as “Open-Air Ward.”
Several team members immediately clicked to confirm. Many rescue vehicles could be seen heading towards the location on the map.
Jiang Ye did not linger. He looked around, saw no large animals in the surrounding grasslands, got into his vehicle, and drove back towards the city.
Not far into the city, he saw a bathhouse. The parking lot was full of luxury private cars.
Jiang Ye increased his speed, rammed through several cars, and violently pushed the rescue vehicle to the entrance of the bathhouse.
He got out, shot the revolving door to pieces, and stepped inside on the shattered glass.
As soon as he entered, he saw two receptionists by the counter, twitching slightly. Jiang Ye slung his assault rifle across his chest, scooped up one person with each arm, dragged them out, and threw them into the vehicle.
The receptionists being here meant the bathhouse was still in operation, and there must be a lot of customers.
Jiang Ye rushed in again with great haste and went to the second-floor swimming pool.
The scene in the pool was like a horror movie. Many people, fat and thin, drowned in the water, their white bellies exposed like sick pigs thrown into a river, motionless. These people had been dead for several days and were already stinking, but no flies were present.
Some people lay sprawled by the pool. They were all still alive, but their faces were paler than each other, all half-dead. This was a men’s bathhouse, and more than half of the patrons were fat men, starting at 180 pounds, making them heavy. Jiang Ye could no longer carry one person in each arm. He could only support them by their armpits and pull them out one by one.
While dragging these fat men, Jiang Ye saw several bottles of Fan’s shower gel in the corner. No wonder everyone in the bathhouse was incapacitated so quickly. The shower products used were all alien biochemical weapons! With so many people using them, it was practically a giant poison vat!
It took over forty minutes to clear out the men’s bathhouse. A full vehicle of people wrapped in towels, lying and stacked on top of each other. The rescue vehicle was filled with the scent of men, decay, and shower gel. Jiang Ye opened all the windows, enduring the various smells, and sent the sick to the open space outside the city.
The scale of the sick in the open space had grown several times over. Two red rescue vehicles were unloading people. Various men, women, and children, delirious and with rolling eyes, lay on the grass. Some of the fitter ones were still wriggling and turning over half-dead, like worms under the scorching sun.
Jiang Ye felt a sense of sorrow. So many people, all reduced to this sorry state by biochemical weapons. This was a bloodless massacre.
As he was unloading fat men from the vehicle, after carrying just two, a loud explosion echoed from the western horizon.
The sound was undoubtedly the detonation of a large bomb, muffled yet vast. Just listening to the sound, one could feel its terrifying power, several times more profound than thunder. Could it be a nuclear weapon?
All the soldiers present looked up. A momentary flash of light appeared in the unseen distance, like a tiny candle flame, and quickly extinguished.
“Speed up!” Jiang Ye urged, his voice hurried. “The Mir army will descend soon. Get everyone out of the city!”
“Commander, we are too few!” a soldier cried, his voice choked with tears. “My back is so sore I can’t stand up straight!”
“We can’t save them all! We have a hundred people to save a city of five million. How can we possibly save everyone?”
“Shut up, all of you, and get back to work!” Jiang Ye shouted angrily. “Save one if you can! If you’re tired, shoot yourself and get a new body from the base!”
His subordinates fell silent.
Jiang Ye emptied the rescue vehicle and once again sped back to the bathhouse.
He went up to the third floor, where there was a huge women’s bath, filled with milk. Like the men’s bath, dozens of people had drowned in the water, floating like human ice cubes on a sea of milk. It was likely that the milk in the bath had not been changed for days, and a heavy stench permeated the entire space.
“Are you from the rescue team?” a clear female voice suddenly rang out.
Jiang Ye was startled. He turned around and saw a white girl, about sixteen or seventeen years old, wrapped in a towel, standing barefoot and very weak.
“My name is Lena. I’m the duty manager here. My illness got better last night, but I’m still very weak. I just ate something,” she explained.
“Your illness got better? Happy Flu?” Jiang Ye asked.
“Yes, it healed on its own,” Lena shivered slightly and tightened her towel. “Perhaps my immunity is better.”
Jiang Ye raised his gun and pointed it at her. “Please turn around, move your hair aside, and let me see the back of your head. Please don’t be angry, this is for…”
“I understand, I understand. Mir mechanical spies,” Lena turned and pushed her blonde hair aside. Her scalp looked normal, with no metal plates indicating a mechanical spy.
“Get into the rescue vehicle. It’s parked at the entrance. I’ll take you to safety,” Jiang Ye said.
“I’ll help you rescue people,” Lena turned and walked in, looking at the floating corpses in the bath. She covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes reddening. “So tragic, so many people died…”
“Let’s work faster. Drag out anyone who is alive,” Jiang Ye said. “The Mir army is coming soon, we need to race against time.”
Lena nodded and began lifting the sick with Jiang Ye.
The two worked frantically, not stopping for over twenty minutes, finally lifting all the survivors from the women’s bath into the rescue vehicle.
There was still a little space left in the vehicle, enough for two or three more people. The bathhouse had six floors, so there were definitely other survivors.
Just as Jiang Ye was about to get out of the vehicle to continue the rescue, his pants were suddenly tugged.
His heart sank. A gun!
“Bang!” A gunshot.
Jiang Ye looked down and saw a large bloody hole in his chest. All his strength drained from the wound, and his body uncontrollably fell to the ground.
Lena dropped the handgun and reached out to turn Jiang Ye’s body over, making him sit against the front door. Jiang Ye coughed up blood, struggling to reach for his assault rifle. But Lena had already taken the assault rifle from him.
“You lowly human, I will make you watch as your own kind are slaughtered!” Lena expertly loaded the assault rifle. “Opposing the Mir leads only to death! I have been lurking on this planet for 13 years. No one will escape alive from my territory!”
The gun fired again. Jiang Ye’s head lolled to the side, and he lost consciousness.
He woke up from a bathtub full of ice cubes, leaped up quickly, opened the wardrobe, and took out his headset.
“Attention all personnel! There are new model mechanical spies! They do not have metal plates on their heads! Anyone encountering a conscious human, be extremely cautious! Do not let them touch any weapons!”
After calming down, Jiang Ye added:
“Anyone encountering a conscious human, tie their hands behind their backs!”