Translator: _Min_ Editor: Rundi
The rural area of City K; three kilometers from the frontline.
It was the modern world, but the cold northern gust was mixed with the desolateness of the apocalypse and scattered into the corners of the streets.
City K had never snowed before, nor had it been this cold.
In the dark corners, the homeless and stray dogs could occasionally be seen living together. The supermarket on the street had been long closed leaving the hungry people inside searching for edible food. If they discovered fantastic loots, people who felt guilt would leave some cash on the unattended cashier, but most people chose to leave after they turned off their flashlight.
It didn’t make a difference since the F Pesos was worthless. The rich and the poor both starved. USD still had some purchasing power, but no one was willing to sell food or valuable medicines.
Yesterday, the Moro guerillas had pushed to there again, and this time, they were even more ferocious. But regardless if they arrive or not, no trucks packed with food would arrive. Since a couple of kilometers away, a terrifying infection crisis was happening.
The civilians had long foregone their previous political stance, regardless of who is better, they wanted the stupid war to end.
Whether it was Country F 14th Division that quarantined the city or the Moro guerrillas, they didn’t look like good guys in the locals’ eyes. As to Celestial Trade, they rarely appeared in the sight of the ordinary people. So the locals didn’t have a much better impression on the mercenary with equipment comparable to an actual army.
Invaders? Perhaps
But who cares?
To prevent the Moro guerillas from pushing forward, the 14th Division sent a large number of snipers and buried anti-personnel landmine at strategic locations.
This did interfere with Moro’s 5th Division’s push forward since Moro lacked tanks and armored vehicles, their force was mostly comprised of infantries and machine gunners. The highly precise snipers were obtained from the hands of F’s 21st Division.
But not only did the guerillas died under the scope of the snipers and landmines, but more civilians without combat experience also died.
This place was the blind spot to humanitarianism.
To get rid of the troublesome snipers, Celestial Trade chose to airstrike.
The invisible Ghost Agents used laser positions to aim at the targets, and the Aurora-20 fired a stream of bullets over to shred the sniper and the building he hid in, into dust. To avoid causing civilian casualties, Jiang Chen ordered to avoid using bombs in the city area.
It was not out of kindness. It was to avoid disadvantageous evidence against Celestial Trade in the international society.
Even then, the snipers still delayed two day’s time.
The situation was about to end very soon.
The night of December 31st.
Celestial Trade’s Command Center ordered a full-scale attack, launching an attack on City K during the night of New Year’s Eve and eliminating Country F’s modernized 14th division and the tank brigade mobilizing for assistance. The goal was to take control of the city before January 2nd.
The attack initiated from Celestial Trade’s missiles.
The EMP missiles first blew up on the east side of the city and completely destroyed 14th Division’s electronic equipment.
But since the 14th division was the elite force of Country F, when the second missile was launched into the air, they launched an anti-missile attack on Celestial Trade’s launch ground. Eight 155 mm cannons almost decimated an entire hill, but they didn’t fire for long before they were turned into scraps by the missiles of Aurora-20.
To avoid the airstrike from Celestial Trade, Country F dug deep into their heads for methods out. For example, use grey cloths to cover the cannon, to hide the tanks among buildings, launch attacks when Moro soldiers were approaching…
But when the EMP missiles arrived in the battle, all trickeries lost their purpose.
Without the report from reconnaissance, the soldiers could only use smoke distance and instincts to fire.
The situation of the tank brigade was better. Fortunately for the regressed equipment, the “Scorpion” reconnaissance tank used as the primary tank belonged to the last century anyway. While it was not designed with anti-radiation and anti-EMP functionality like the modern tanks, there was no advanced equipment to destroy.
The 14th Division faced the same situation the defeated 21st Division faced. All electronic equipment was destroyed, and the control system completely collapsed.
At the same time, the illuminating bombs rose into the air and lit up the pitch black sky to the southwest of the city. With the assistance of the vehicle mounted machine guns, the Moro 5th Division force with high morale started to take charge like a direct hit on the face of the 14th Division elites.
On the other hand, under the stark contrast, the city’s southeast corner was deadened dark.
500 Celestial Trade Marines under the transport of ten heavy cargo planes airdropped to the edge of the zombie occupied zone.
Because they were injected with E-Grade genetic vaccines, the soldiers were completely immune to the zombie virus. They didn’t need to worry about infection despite not wearing protective suits.
With the help of night vision goggles, the 500 soldiers and over 1000 Hummingbird drones were like a sharp blade in the darkness that stabbed fiercely at the heart of the 14th division zone of control. With the guidance of Sky Eye X1, they cleared out the cannons and anti-air machine guns scattered across the city.
This night, the 14th Division soldiers felt a deep fear because of the asymmetrical war.
The F-5A and Mustang fighters stationed at the air force base refused to take over. Against the fighters that even the FA-50 could not defeat, everyone knew it would be a one-way trip.
Santos felt unfortunate about this. He had seen the terrifying reaping ability of the Aurora-20. Other than the fifth generation fighters on the aircraft carrier that could pose a limited threat, despite how many paper airplanes Country F sent, their only destiny was to rest on the ocean floor.
Six in the morning, the sun has yet to rise, but the battle in the city was mostly over.
The defeat of the 14th Division was inevitable, the tank brigade and mechanized brigade all surrendered to Moro, leaving only ten snipers in the city, resisting.
Belli left the 11th Infantry Division resisting in the safe zone and boarded a transport cargo anchored at the port.
Because the city was under quarantine, all the cargos were seized in the port.
The order was personally signed by Aquino, but now that the flames of war were about to burn him, Belli couldn’t care more.
He took his guards and close officials to board the cargo, woke up the crew seized at the port and ordered them to leave the port.
The explosions and flames soon broke out near the safe zone. Belli was cruising on the open sea, he only let a breath of relief after he saw City K turned into a black dot in the distance.
Although the criticisms from the Presidential Palace and the media would make this life difficult for the next half of a year, at least he won’t become a captive of the guerillas which made him feel somewhat reassured.
“How much longer before we arrive at City S?”
“Around one hour more… Dammit, I finally know why the 21st Division lost communication.” Standing beside him, the still startled Sergeant Cavell gulped.
“That’s an odd missile.”
Belli’s face was covered in gloom.
Country F soldiers didn’t lose on will or tactics, they lost on technology. The gap in the latter felt the most helpless. The former could be fixed with training and mental training, but the latter could not be fixed in a short period of time.
Unless UA takes the risk of aggravating Hua and installs the missile defense system in Country F and sell Country F the latest fifth-generation jet, they didn’t have any odds of winning at all.
But thinking back, even if UA was willing to sell, they won’t have the money to purchase. One fifth generation jet cost over one hundred million and the defense budget of Country F per year at most could purchase two jets.
Just as Belli was thinking how he should handle Aquino’s criticism, he didn’t have the slightest idea how visible he was under the watch of the Sky Eye X1 satellite.
