"Targets moving, approaching the boulder pile. Intent unknown, but they've entered a dangerous range." Bossie did not take this rabble seriously at all.
Jonathan's eyes turned cold. "Warning shot?"
"No," Maya stopped him. She was thinking further ahead. "Verbal warning first. We have the absolute advantage. They're just clowns. There's no need to escalate first and waste time."
By then, David and the other two had reached the boulder pile.
From there, they could see the transport vehicles more clearly, and could even make out some of the crate types.
David still seemed unsatisfied. He craned his neck, trying to see what was happening inside the tunnel.
"Attention, personnel ahead!" A National Guard soldier watching that direction raised his rifle and shouted, "This is a Rock Fortress controlled area! Stop approaching immediately and fall back to a safe distance! Repeat, fall back immediately!"
The sudden warning startled David, and he instinctively ducked back. But the humiliation and anger that surged up right after made him lose his head.
Instead of retreating, he raised the hunting rifle in his hands and waved it. He was not aiming it, but the gesture was still highly provocative and defensive.
David shouted toward the tunnel entrance, "We're just looking from here! This place doesn't belong to you!"
That move lit the fuse in an instant.
"Bang!"
A sharp, clean gunshot tore through the howl of the wind and snow.
The shot came from Jenson's hidden direction.
Almost at the same moment the gunshot rang out, the hunting rifle in David's hands seemed to be struck by an invisible force. The wooden stock exploded, sending splinters and metal parts flying everywhere.
The huge impact split the web of David's hand and numbed his entire arm. The hunting rifle flew from his grip and landed in the snow.
David and his two companions were completely stunned. They froze in place, their faces as pale as the snow.
They had not even seen where the bullet came from.
"Target weapon destroyed," Jenson's calm voice came through the team comms.
No further orders were needed.
"Move!" Jonathan growled, charging out from cover first. Carver rushed out at the same time, with Merle close behind.
Maya immediately signaled Lieutenant Welles to keep the transport team steady, while she, Shane, and Michonne moved quickly to take favorable positions on the flank.
In almost an instant, the Rock Fortress members had formed a half-encirclement around the boulder pile.
Jonathan held an assault rifle. Carver had his shotgun raised and aimed steadily at the targets. Merle swung the brand-new axe blade on his right arm, a savage grin on his face.
Shane and Michonne stood to the left and right, their eyes cold.
Bossie also emerged from concealment, his rifle muzzle locked onto the other two men.
And everyone knew the deadliest threat came from the unknown sniper who had just displayed terrifying precision.
"Hands on your heads! Get on your knees! Now!" Carver made no attempt to hide his killing intent.
These little pests were really getting annoying. Weak as hell, yet still itching to jump around.
David clutched his bleeding hand and stared at the fully armed Rock Fortress members who seemed to have descended from nowhere. Then he thought of the sniper's gaze, as if it were everywhere at once.
All his anger and courage drained away in an instant, leaving only fear and regret.
He and his two companions, already scared stiff, dropped trembling to their knees in the snow and raised their hands high.
"Shit, what a bunch of useless trash..." Merle sneered. He stepped forward, kicked the ruined hunting rifle away, then roughly searched David to make sure he had no hidden weapons.
Maya stepped forward, her gaze sweeping over the three survivors shaking like leaves before settling on David. Her voice was icy.
"I remember our people already warned you to keep your distance. Next time, the bullet won't be aimed at your weapon."
She waved a hand. "Get lost. Tell your people this is the first and last warning.
Until we finish transporting the supplies, any approach, any spying, will be treated as a hostile act. You bear the consequences yourselves."
If they had not wanted to avoid a conflict with a community of more than eighty ordinary people, and if they had not wanted to delay the warehouse transport, people like Maya, Carver, and Merle would have already shot these three reckless fools full of holes.
David and his two companions felt as if they had been pardoned. They scrambled to their feet, not even daring to pick up the ruined hunting rifle, then fled in utter embarrassment into the depths of the woods and soon vanished into the wind and snow.
The Rock Fortress team quickly returned to their original positions. Security remained in place, and the transport continued, as if what had just happened was nothing more than a minor interruption.
At the same time, at the Norris Community logging camp.
When David and his two companions stumbled back to camp, looking dazed and shaken, then incoherently recounted what had happened, the camp's already fragile balance was completely shattered.
Especially after they heard about Jenson's almost impossible shot, and the overwhelming force and killing intent the Rock Fortress team had displayed in an instant.
Knox and Benjamin trembled with rage, pointing at David's nose as they cursed him.
"Idiot! Reckless fool! I told you not to provoke them! You almost got everyone killed!
If they hadn't shown mercy, the three of you would already be corpses in the snow! Are you trying to drag all of us down with you?"
David's face shifted between blue and white. He wanted to argue, but found he could not say a single defiant word.
His hand, still bleeding, was the strongest evidence.
Gwendolyn's face was pale, but her gaze was unusually firm.
She steadied Knox, who was shaking with anger, and said to the frightened community members gathering around, "You all saw it. You all heard it.
Fight them? With what?
One bullet from them can knock your gun out of your hand from a hundred meters away. The next one can take your life.
They have so many people, so many vehicles, and equipment we can't even imagine.
Going against them is a dead end."
Anna also nodded in agreement. She looked around at everyone. "Gwendolyn is right. Our only chance to survive now is to put aside that pitiful pride and find a way to join them.
At least then, the children won't have to starve or freeze, the sick can be treated, and we won't have to go to sleep worrying about walkers or bullets from nowhere killing us in the night."
More and more people silently lowered their heads.
Marcus's deputy, Clifford, said nothing.
As one of the main fighters in the community, he was not as impulsive as David, but he did not want to lower his head either.
Deep down, however, he also felt that Anna and Gwendolyn were right.
Besides, even the two elders, Knox and Benjamin, were now completely opposed to making Rock Fortress their enemy.
David's reckless act and miserable outcome were like a bucket of ice water, extinguishing the last bit of unrealistic fantasy in many people's hearts.
Sometimes, fear made people see reality more clearly than any lecture ever could.