Chapter 102: Commercial Center - Consolidating Gains (II)
Hans finally stepped out of the Armored SUV.
Matilda followed beside him while the other three DASF units spread around the vehicle. None of them moved far. The surface had been declared secure, but the underground entrances remained active and thousands of red markers still occupied the levels below.
The air outside was worse than he expected.
Blood had gathered between the parking rows, mixing with oil, broken glass, and the dirt shaken loose by cannon fire. Bodies remained across the pavement in every direction.
Some had fallen cleanly.
Most had not.
The ordinary infected made up the largest part of the dead. They lay between the cars, beneath the concrete dividers, and across the pedestrian lanes where the squads had stopped them.
Even those had been more difficult than the first infected Hans encountered after the apocalypse.
They climbed over vehicles. Forced themselves through broken windows.
Continued moving with missing limbs and opened torsos until enough rounds destroyed whatever remained inside their heads.
The earlier iterations of the zombies were milder. One could say they were tamer a few months ago compared to now.
The virus is slowly evolving, Hans frowned.
The progression was too similar to how HELIX worked. Even the strength granted by the System developed through its own stages.
The Runners had gone farther than the ordinary infected.
Several remained across the roofs and hoods they had used to cross the parking lot. One hung through the shattered window of a bus, its body torn apart by the coaxial machine gun that had followed it through the passenger compartment.
The two Brutes remained near the western lanes.
One rested against the overturned bus with most of its shoulder and neck missing. The second had collapsed over a sedan after Big Rhino’s heavy machine gun and Zolyah’s Barrett finished it.
The earlier blocks had added more.
Screamers. Spitters.
A Stalker that almost reached Dobrev’s formation.
A Leaper that crossed an entire corridor before the Machine Gunner caught its leg.
Close to ten thousand infected had occupied the commercial property and the surrounding blocks when the platoons arrived. Several thousand still remained beneath the structure, but the bodies above ground already showed how much of that number had disappeared.
Then there was the Tank.
Hans crossed another parking lane and stopped before the wrecked vehicles surrounding it.
The corpse remained buried between them.
One arm lay several meters away, separated at the shoulder. Most of the right side had been opened by the first cannon round and two HEAT missiles. Another missile had destroyed the chest, while the final APFSDS round passed upward through whatever remained around its neck and head.
It had taken a lot of firepower from South One to eliminate it. Yet the creature never reached the avenue.
An ordinary squad may have a hard time against these... behemoths. Good thing they had not evolved much farther yet!
Hans’s breath hitched just at the thought. After staring at it for a moment, he turned away from the corpse.
Big Rhino stood beyond the final parking row.
The Vanguard’s turret remained directed toward the commercial center, though its cannon had lifted above the soldiers moving between the bodies.
Its commander noticed Hans approaching.
"Commander!"
The voice remained as loud as ever.
"Big Rhino hopes you enjoyed the demonstration!"
Hans glanced back at the Tank.
"Four direct heavy-weapon hits before your second shell finished it. It was a spectacular performance indeed."
The commander laughed.
"It was a stubborn target."
"That is one way to describe it."
Hans placed one hand against the Vanguard’s hull and opened its information.
------
Vehicle Name: Big Rhino
Unit: Vanguard Main Battle Tank
Star Promotion: 1
[ Primary Weapon ]
120mm Smoothbore Cannon
Current Shell Capacity: 65 shells
Effective Range: 3 kilometers
Base Fire Rate: 1 round every 4 seconds
[ Shell Types ]
Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot / APFSDS
High Explosive / HE
[ Secondary Weapons ]
Coaxial 7.62mm Machine Gun
Current Ammunition: 2,800 rounds
Commander’s 12.7×99mm Heavy Machine Gun
Current Ammunition: 1,500 rounds
[ Countermeasures ]
Smoke Launcher
6 charges
Basic infrared and thermal optics
[ Vehicle Systems ]
Fire Control Computer
Thermal Imaging
Stabilized turret for firing while moving
Composite Armor Plating
[ Crew ]
5 Personnel
Commander
Co-Axial Gunner
HMG Gunner
Driver
Assistant
[ Crew Equipment ]
Standard Infantry Kit
Pistols only
Crew intercom with embedded System targeting assistance
Two field rations and one 1-liter canteen per crew member
[ Additional Attributes — 1-Star Effects ]
Main Gun Capacity: +15 shells
Coaxial Machine-Gun Capacity: +800 rounds
Commander HMG Capacity: +500 rounds
Cannon Reload Efficiency: +10%
Fire-Control Accuracy: +5%
Crew Stamina: +10%
Movement Speed: +5%
Turret Traverse Speed: +5%
[ Remarks ]
Big Rhino is a promoted frontline main battle tank designed for urban combat, breakthrough operations, and armored support.
Its main cannon is effective against hive structures, armored infected, heavy mutations, and targets that cannot be handled efficiently by ordinary infantry weapons.
------
Hans looked over the numbers again.
The first star had not changed what Big Rhino was meant to do.
It merely gave the Vanguard more opportunities to do it.
Most modern main battle tanks carried around forty to fifty rounds for their main cannon, depending on the design and how much internal space had been sacrificed for ammunition.
The Abrams he remembered carried somewhere within the lower forties.
Big Rhino carried sixty-five.
That difference did not look too absurd when reduced into numbers, but fifteen to twenty additional shells could decide how long a tank remained useful during a sustained battle. A conventional crew would already be counting every remaining round while Big Rhino could continue firing at armored infected, hive structures, barricades, or entire groups packed too tightly for ordinary weapons.
The reload speed made the comparison even worse.
One round every four seconds.
The first promotion had improved that further.
Even an experienced human loader would struggle to maintain such a pace throughout an entire engagement. Big Rhino’s crew could continue until the ammunition ran out, with the System handling whatever limitations should have slowed them.
Then came the machine guns.
Two thousand eight hundred rounds for the coaxial gun.
One thousand five hundred rounds of .50 BMG above the turret.
The coaxial reserve was not impossible for a modern tank. Some carried several thousand rounds for their rifle-caliber weapons.
Against infected, however, the comparison stopped mattering.
The weapon did not need to penetrate another tank. It only had to cut through muscle and bone. A sustained burst could tear apart the front ranks, strike several bodies through one another, and continue until the horde was forced into whatever direction the gunner wanted.
The commander’s heavy machine gun was nothing short of being atrocious.
One thousand five hundred .50-caliber rounds meant one thousand five hundred chances to punch through vehicles, remove limbs, tear apart Runners, or break down Brutes before they entered rifle range. Hans had already watched single rounds pass through more than one infected.
And those weapons remained secondary.
If the machine guns failed to stop something, Big Rhino still had sixty-five shells waiting inside the hull.
Hans looked from the panel toward the Vanguard.
A normal main battle tank was already a moving fortress.
Big Rhino was a fortress designed to keep killing long after an ordinary armored vehicle should have withdrawn for ammunition. It could see through darkness and smoke, fire while moving, absorb the punishment of an urban battlefield, and carry enough ammunition to turn several streets into graveyards.
Then the System would restore everything again at noon the following day.
No ammunition trucks. No cranes bringing shells toward the turret. No supply depot filled with guarded explosives.
Big Rhino only needed to remain operational until the next refresh.
And this was only its first star.
Hans slowly closed the panel.
The Tank had looked monstrous when it charged through the parking lot.
Compared to the Vanguard standing behind him, it had merely been a difficult target.