Star Rank Hunter

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Translator's Note: First things first, thank you very much to M.L. and R.V.! As a reminder, VolareTL will be celebrating its one year anniversary next week on the 15th of December. Hint: You won't need to spend and sponsor next week! Dakara yorokobe, shounen!

Translator: Craxuan

Editor: darklord5555

Chapter 37: Sweeping The Station

The aircraft slowly descended after approaching the station’s central area. Rather than scared, the black mice grew excited by the aircraft’s approach and reacted as if they had seen food.

Since there were many locations inside the station that could not be scanned by the scanner, there was no telling exactly how many black mice were down there. However, dense black dots could be seen everywhere looking down from the aircraft.

In just half a year, the mutated mice had reproduced to astonishing numbers. Its tremendous reproduction speed was obviously incomparable to normal mice.

“The station’s isolation barrier has been activated, we may begin the operation. Over.”

“Roger that, over.” The seventh battalion commander Shute switched the communication channel, “All squads, standby! Begin countdown to infrasound weapon in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 - Fire!”

The soundwaves that could not be heard by human ears were discharged from the aircraft, and the originally very excited and lively mutated black mice suddenly began to grow anxious. The agile ones had already begun to escape far away, and those who were slow became slower and slower.

This was the infrasound weapon provided by the research station that was specifically developed based on the natural frequency of the black mice’s internal organs. While it was effective, it wasn’t working as well as they had imagined. Still, at least it was effective.

After the infrasound attack had ended, the number of black mice around the station’s central area had decreased quite a bit. Those that remained were somewhat slow and groggy.

Seizing the opening, many cables were lowered from the low flying aircraft as the operatives wearing combat suits glided down along the cables and descended on the surface. The squads of ten men swiftly formed into formations and began dealing with the targets while pushing forwards.

The spinning, high-speed bullets cut through the air before sinking into a mutated black mouse’s body and exploding, blasting its internal organs into smithereens. A huge hole appeared on the half-meter long mutated black mouse’s body before it fell to the ground and died without even twitching once. Its black skin and red blood began to dehydrate after the drugs inside the bullets began to take hold, and in less than a minute, the entire mutated black mouse had transformed into a pile of powder.

The reason Cillin was assigned in the squad led by the seventh battalion commander Shute himself was probably to watch out for Cillin, the student. However, a warrior was not a nanny. Shute did not expect Cillin to perform well or anything, but at the very least he must be able to protect his own life.

Within the 10-man formation, Cillin was placed in a fairly safe, backup point. But before long, everyone realized that this ten plus years old student was most definitely a pro.

Cillin’s firing speed was impressive. While the others were still firing their second shot, he had already fired his third. Moreover, all three shots were fired in succession without missing a single target. But the most important thing to notice was that the mutated black mice he killed were all large and swift. All these factors combined were enough to draw glances from the side.

When a squad member was reloading, Cillin almost singlehandedly took over their point’s suppressive and support fire. They didn’t even notice when Cillin had reloaded, and only heard a series of uninterrupted gunshots. With such firing speed, setting physical endurance aside, there wasn’t even aim time, was there?

Cillin was accepted quickly by this squad after displaying capabilities no weaker than a soldier’s as a student. The rest of the men were also beginning to set down their worries and focused on their own attacks as well. With their comrades and this very capable kid watching their backs, there was nothing they needed to worry about.

Inside the space station outside the asteroid, a man wearing a uniform of a lieutenant general rank stood at the command center and watched the ongoing ‘sweep’ at the station happening on the displays.

He was Marshal Feigler’s man, and he even received a call from a certain GAL politician before he left. It could be said that he bore a ‘heavy weight’ on his shoulders. Both Knight and Pride’s squad had two specially assigned agents to guarantee the two young masters’ safety. You could say that this was a special privilege; he wouldn’t say anything even if he might harbor certain opinions of his own. Still, there was something to be gained from this trip. The three students Huo Neil mentioned had performed pretty well; especially that kid named Cillin. He was comparable even to those celebrities at Sector C’s military academies. At the very least, the lieutenant general hadn’t noticed much emotional changes in Cillin so far. He was sufficiently cooperative, calm, decisive and accurate!

While staring at the screen, the lieutenant general pondered the possibility of absorbing Cillin into his subordinate’s troops once the operation was over. His talents were utterly wasted at Seven Lights.

The operation was met with some obstacles after they pushed forward and entered into the station. The cables were bitten, the power generator was missing, the energy system was malfunctioning and the batteries were unusable. Any place without a window was completely pitch black, plus a lot of the areas inside the station’s laboratories were infrared and X ray scan insulant. In order to make sure that every laboratory had been ‘swept’ clean, the operatives would throw a flashbang, rodenticide grenade and so on to force the black mice inside out to the open. Then they would pop everything that came out.

As the sweeping continued, the black mice seemed to have sensed the threat from this side of the station and escaped into the open. That was exactly what they had hoped would happen.

If they could force these mutated black mice out of the station and into the empty grounds outside, only then the weaponized aircrafts could perform a large-scale clean up with their directed-energy weapons. Unless it was absolutely necessary, no one was willing to destroy a station that took so much hard work to build with a directed-energy weapon.

At times, several holes could be found inside the station. These were the marks of mutated black mice attacking the station from underground. They had sent many bots to scan down the mice holes, and at the same time, they poured drugs into them to force out the mutated black mice hiding underground. Once this battle was done, the underground constructions of bio stations would likely be improved further.

After a while, the black mice in the base had decreased tremendously. Grey powders were scattered wherever the operation squad went. They were all mutated black mice that were shot and transmuted into powder.

Cillin’s senses were very powerful. Even without looking, he could sense the three mutated black mice hiding behind the lab bench. The second they showed their heads, bullets immediately flew over to blast off their heads.

Maybe the other operatives would experience some difficulties operating in a dark environment, but Cillin wouldn’t. There were a few times when Cillin had opened fire before his squad members could react, exploding the black mice just as the gunshots resounded.

After finished inspecting the area for any signs of abnormal biosignals, Shu Te smiled and said, “Mission complete.”

“Captain, this is the edge of the station already, right?” A squad member asked. Although Shute was the battalion’s commander, the squad members still called him captain out of habit.

“Yeah, we should be done soon. The directed-energy weapons outside have begun cleaning up, and the rest of them should be easier to deal with.” Shute’s tone was slightly relaxed as he took a glance at Cillin fixing an electric circuit on an instrument and said, “Cillin’s pretty good.”

“Oh yes. Even we feel a little ashamed ourselves.” A squad member laughed.

Cillin did not say anything and focused on the task at hand.

Something just didn’t feel right. According to his predictions, this shouldn’t be all the black mice were capable of.