Long-term salvation

General Orlovsky, standing next to him, raised his lips slightly. He was more composed than his erratic colleagues and simply said calmly:

"Besides, there will be more people who will become our members in the future. Maybe some of them will even become marshals."

"Um...should I be called 'Grand Marshal'?" Rhodes asked, raising his hand.

"...That's not a very good name," General Orlovsky quickly ended the topic. "Let's take a look at the battle plan, Commander Rhodes. It will be of interest to you."

+++++++

night.

Corporal Luke Hollis, a member of the US Army and a member of the 2nd Base Support Battalion of the Atlas Company, woke up with a start. He was horrified to find himself surrounded by two men, and the place he was in was not the familiar barracks... This seemed like an interrogation room?!

"What are you going to do?!"

"Stop talking nonsense! You're from the United States Army Intelligence Department (INSCOM), right?" Second Lieutenant Zhao Zian of the Second Department of the Aurora General Staff said viciously. "Your name is on the list!"

Lieutenant Arseniy Pavlov, who was from the GRU, nodded and even punched the unlucky guy as a personal revenge.

"Huh? Wait... Mr. Irons knows me. Give him another call!"

Suddenly, the door to the room was opened from the outside, and another unlucky guy was dragged in by two guards. The intelligence officer who opened the door shrugged and said with a little excitement:

"New list!"

Chapter 498 Before the Burning

The underground headquarters was more spacious than Rhodes had imagined, but it was somewhat simple and was obviously prepared specifically for this operation.

A massive screen stretched across the center, displaying a map of East Africa centered on Kismayo, marked with various military symbols and unit numbers. Furthermore, a smaller map of Mogadishu nearby displayed information on the location of the Joint Task Force, its equipment, and its troop composition. Clicking on it further revealed the commanders' military service, relationships, family dynamics, and personality profiles.

Honestly, it's uncomfortable in detail.

No wonder Irons had the confidence to agree to Rod's proposal to start a war early. He had been preparing here for a long time.

"I was worried about the potential disasters in the other world that might occur during the attack, so I had to call you all over... I just didn't expect the disaster level to rise so much as soon as you showed up here, Rhode. It really caught me off guard. Are you some kind of reverse Santa Claus?"

Irons seemed somewhat helpless when talking about this. His eyes swept over Marian who followed Rod in, and Hinai who was summoned. The two girls were listening attentively to the battle plan.

For them, being able to witness this level of military action was a blessing in itself. The others were not interested, and Makoto, who was interested, fell asleep after listening for a while, forcing Rhode to have Shiroko and Little Red Riding Hood come in and carry her away.

"A mobile force composed of Army Without Borders personnel will roam the battlefield to deal with possible disasters in the other world. After all, some small warlords are also controlled by the Ibris Organization."

"I'll take care of it," Rhode nodded slightly. "It's a good opportunity for me to test drive the prototype that came out of the lab... The M9 prototype? Are you guys progressing so quickly?"

"It's not even a prototype. It's purely a lab-grown technology verification product. It's incredibly expensive, and mass production is a long way off." After glaring at Rhode unhappily, Irons waved his hand, seemingly just trying to make some promises.

"Once the M9's technology matures, Atlas can provide you with a customized AS mecha. Just wait for now!"

Listening to Ains's nagging complaints, Rhode's lips curled up slightly. He no longer paid attention to the surrounding noise and focused on the battle plan in front of him:

Atlas' main force departed from Garbahari, annihilating the various warlords (and mercenaries) in Bakool, Hiran, and Bay regions, capturing the three state capitals of Hudur, Beledweyne, and Baydabo. From these bases, they launched a second phase of their offensive southeastward, towards the vicinity of Mogadishu. [I'm not a professional, so I've only given a rough outline; please read for the sake of clarity.]

The most elite troops will set out from Jilib and attack Marka outside Mogadishu, where they will confront the joint task force. Fleets and fighter jets will also be sent to intercept them in the open sea. All they have to do is maintain the deterrence of force and ensure that the United States troops around Mogadishu do not cause trouble... This is not an easy job.

Because of this, Rhodes also ordered New Jersey and Alicorn to stand by off the coast of Somalia, ready to provide support at any time.

As for intercepting the enemy air forces coming from Ethiopia... Pixy and Michael will handle it, just the two of them, but they are the only two needed.

"The most important thing is time, but this is also my profession."

General Alan Faulkner raised his palm and drew a huge arc from Kismayo to Dhusamareb, the capital of Galguduud State:

"We organized a large-scale airborne operation. They set out first, sailing from the open sea, bypassing the air defense identification zones and the fleet's control area, striking directly at the enemy's rear, cutting off the enemy's advance in Somaliland and northern Somalia. You probably can't imagine how much money the United States has spent hiring tribal militias in those areas. Therefore, the airborne troops also need to establish a defense line and consolidate the defense of key node cities."

"The United States' aircraft carrier fleet is not here?"

"Once the intelligence we've uncovered is confirmed, they'll soon arrive from the Middle East to intercept the transport planes," Irons said calmly. He summoned several staff officers and whispered a few words to them before continuing. "But they probably won't expect us to implement our combat plan ahead of time. Perfect timing. Have your lovers bring intelligence specialists to conduct an internal review of the airborne troops... but most of them are members of the Army Without Borders, so I don't think anything will go wrong."

"of course can."

Hearing this, Rhodes shrugged and said nothing more. Instead, he focused his attention on the two generals' explanation of the upcoming war plan.

When dusk fell over the land of Somalia again, Rhodes walked out of the underground command center. He stretched, got in an open jeep and headed to his "base" - a residential area specially allocated for him and the mass-produced Nikkis. Of course, since it was a temporary base, the conditions were not very good.

Before that, Rhodes circled the base to see if there were any fish that had slipped through the net. Feeling a little tired, he asked the driver to take him to the residential area.

When Rhodes arrived at the residential area, he saw the girls barbecuing in the open air. The mass-produced Nikkis were sitting in front of the campfire in small groups, nonchalantly waiting for time to pass, waiting for the moment when war would call them.

"Hey, Rod, do you want to try my chicken roll?"

The blonde girl waved the food in her hand at Rhodes, her cute little face covered in grease. The black cat Pickman sat on a pile of empty ammunition boxes with her owner, enjoying his barbecue.

Little Red Riding Hood was teaching the mass-produced Nikkis how to play the guitar... and she surprisingly played quite well.

"It's a little burnt." Rhodes took the meat roll made by Abigail from Aomori Miya. After receiving the angry bite from the blonde girl, he ate the meat roll and said slowly, "Where are the others?"

"Mori was called to the Intelligence Department by you to work overtime. Hinata and Marianne haven't come back yet... Oh, I see, they just got off the car and came over." Abigail squirmed in Rod's arms and tried to wipe her mouth with his clothes. "Makoto... Hmm? Where's Makoto?"

At the back of the armored vehicle, Shirako, who was trying to lure the sleeping Makoto with barbecue, waved, while Rapunzel, who was sitting nearby, came over with a large plate of raw meat mixed with vegetables and seafood.

"The Somali fishermen in the Atlas Company-controlled area have upgraded to better fishing boats and have gained better education and knowledge," Rapunzel said softly with a gentle smile. "With order and hope, people will look forward to a better future, rather than living each day in a muddle."

"That's good news."

Rhodes said so, but he still chose to carry Abigail aside in his arms - the offspring of the evil god could use some tricks to cool himself down, but he couldn't - and after moving away from the campfire, Rhodes moved a box and sat down, looking at the sky of Somalia.

The night sky here is not clear, but is filled with searchlights and signal lights from various types of aircraft. These lights come together, as if forming an artificial Milky Way.

"...Commander, you look a little nervous."

Marian brought a plate of barbecue over and sat down next to Rod, watching him eat quietly. After a few minutes of silence, Nikki said softly:

"The enemy is no match for us. Their organization, equipment, individual soldier quality, and even—please forgive my use of this word, Commander—are inferior. But they are truly acting for the goal of 'saving humanity'... I heard from Meiya that even the proudest United States soldiers, after joining the Army Without Borders, are willing to help the impoverished Somalis. This is the change you have brought about, isn't it?"

"The foundation is shaky," Rhodes said, gazing up at the night sky. "People will be incited. The power of tribe, religious beliefs, and even tradition can easily extinguish our efforts. But we must do it. In ten or twenty years, we will succeed. I've seen successful examples even after thirty years."

"Then what do you have to worry about?"

"Then what do you have to worry about?"

Rod turned his head and looked at Marianne. He smiled:

"I will take you with me, dead or alive."

The words merged into the breeze wrapped in gravel and melted between soft lips.

Chapter 499: Mercenary Wars: Burning Sky (3K·1/5)

"The air was trembling, as if the sky was on fire."

"That was the code word for the launch of a large-scale military operation known as the 'Mercenary War.' At the time, I was a member of the UN Special Investigation Team operating in southern Somalia—you know, the UN needed to find the 'problem' with Atlas."

The man in the white shirt said this, taking a sip of coffee from the cup in his hand with a gentle smile on his face, but when he talked about the past, his expression was inevitably a little stiff.

The independent investigative reporter wrote these words in his notebook, black ink spreading across the paper. After a pause, he took a nearby tissue and dipped it in the excess ink before continuing to write down the man's story.

"But after the war, this phrase was uttered by the soldiers of the Atlas Corps—mercenaries, just mercenaries, without a country, without loyalty, without honor, driven into war and slaughter by their employers and money—I don't like mercenaries, but I have to say, the soldiers of the Atlas Corps... and [them] are different."

"no the same?"

Facing the investigative reporter's gaze, the man spread his hands, a matter-of-fact look on his face:

"It's obvious, my friend, especially after the Mogadishu incident. Everyone in the world is looking at them with new eyes, isn't it? The book 'Black Hawk Down: The Soldiers Who Jumped into Hell' is very popular. And now, look at the people in central and southern Somalia who are living a normal life. There is no war or famine... Isn't this enough to make them 'different'?"

After hearing this, the reporter nodded and looked out the window at the blood-red sky at dusk - it was so beautiful, so beautiful that it seemed to be burning.

"indeed so."

+ + + + + + + + + +

The operation began in the early morning, with the first shell fired the second the order was given.

Twenty-four self-propelled artillery pieces roared across the barren grasslands of Africa. Waves of eardrum-shattering shrieks woke the Somali warlords' cannon fodder from their sleep, and then sent them into a drowsy and blind panic - there was no need to panic, as two minutes of artillery fire drowned out these tiny lives.

The torrential downpour of artillery fire condensed into a muffled thud that swelled and spread outward. Everyone who heard it thought they were engulfed in it, making the brief moment seem eternity. But as the shells fell, the muffled thud disintegrated into explosions, flames, smoke, and human remains flying into the sky.

This large settlement, marked as "Enemy Stronghold-N-023" on the map, is located on the edge of a road where roads to other cities intersect. In the past, it brought ancient caravans and people, but now all that is left are cold sandbag bunkers, old weapons, and PRG nails.

A nail specifically designed to monitor the road.

But the out-of-place nails will eventually be pulled out.

The militiamen who were not killed in the shelling ran out of the basement and injected themselves with overdoses of drugs mixed with Anshining. About a quarter of them died instantly, but the remaining lunatics would not fear the pain in the last stages of their lives and would tear apart the Western mercenaries who came to act as monitors.

Two dozen frantic militiamen were scattered across the large settlement, firing at any light in the darkness with their old AK47 rifles.

"Yes, the artillery didn't completely eliminate them. There's obviously a basement or anti-artillery hole here," the corporal leading the team shouted loudly on the communication channel. He turned his head and waved to the team members behind him, "We won't go directly into the ruins... Lyle, call that M1A1 tank over, we need that Big Dick!"

The tracks of the M1A1 main battle tank rolled over the cracked earth and the charred ruins of the walls. The roar of the gas turbine was unique and eye-catching under the hazy and dim sky, attracting the attention of those madmen. But when they rushed out of the darkness, they saw only the terrifying metal body of the war engine and the huge muzzle:

At that moment, the darkness went crazy, surging and roaring, twisting into a whirlpool like the Pacific Ocean, and drilling into the muzzle of the 120mm smoothbore gun. The next second, when the tank's main gun opened fire, all the shadows around became darker than the night.

The shock wave generated by the shell flying through the air tore the human body into pieces, causing the body to crash into the mud brick building behind it, wrapped in a cloud of blood mist, and directly collapsing the two-story building.

Dust clouds were kicked up by the impact of the explosion and rolled up the trouser legs of the soldiers wearing mechanical exoskeletons.

"Clean up the battlefield and keep moving forward. We don't have much time to waste!"

The soldiers moved forward cautiously, quickly searching every building that had not collapsed. If they found any signs of life inside, they would throw one or two grenades inside, or simply call for direct fire from tanks and infantry fighting vehicles.

"Take no prisoners, and don't get too close to those bodies! Some lunatics might come charging at us with bombs!"

The sergeant shouted loudly, lowering his night vision goggles and identifying every suspicious target in the emerald green world. After patting the shoulder of the team member next to him, he wiped the sweat from his face and said on the communication channel:

"Report your positions. I don't want to write 'killed by friendly fire' on your death report later. That's fucking stupid... Calling 'Charlie', this is Alpha. We're clearing from east to west. Our work is almost over."

"Then let's meet in the middle, Charlie, over."

In fact, the non-commissioned officers did not need to worry too much - the reconnaissance drones released early were hovering over the settlement, synchronizing the position of each soldier into the command system, and the strobe lights on their shoulders indicated their identities.

At the same time, in the battalion command vehicle of the combined battalion responsible for this cleanup mission, the battalion staff and deputy battalion commander were staring at the screen seriously, constantly reporting their own and enemy positions to the corresponding combat teams.

The brutal and efficient cleanup battle did not last long. In less than fifteen minutes, only corpses and flames were left in this large settlement located at a key node on the road.

"Fuck, it's so hot inside even with the air conditioning on."

The commander of the M1A1 tank opened the hatch, took a deep breath of the hot air outside, and turned his head to look at the surrounding environment - the short battle ended quickly. It was just a massacre of the advanced versus the backward, the rational versus the crazy. There was nothing worth praising.

"We can't keep fighting this kind of battle; it will destroy us."

The tank commander concluded by shaking out his clothes to cool down the stuffy interior.

When the gunner heard this, he just shrugged his shoulders and muttered:

"I really love this kind of battle. It's simple and easy... I wish it were this easy to deal with the United States troops."

"That depends on what those 'suited' guys in the Pentagon think," the commander asked, withdrawing his body. "In five minutes, we'll receive logistics support and restock our fuel and ammunition."

"Okay, Silas and I will get out and try to extract the bones that are stuck in the tracks."

This is a joke. There is no chance that the militiamen will be run over by the tank tracks - they will die under the cover of artillery fire, machine gun and rifle fire, and the accompanying infantry will obviously not let the enemies with weapons such as rocket launchers appear in the blind spot of the tank's sight.

After the gunner got off the vehicle, he saw a group of soldiers resting against a broken wall, and a non-commissioned officer was walking around them.

The firelight danced on the soldiers' faces, causing their shadows to dance on the broken walls. Two people hid in a corner and smoked cigarettes during their free time. From time to time, muffled explosions could be heard in the distance, shaking the entire ground. But it was not just the explosions of artillery and rockets that caused the explosions.

A huge mechanized force was winding its way along the dry river valley road. The roar of the convoy's engines crushed the silence of the desert, as if a giant steel beast was crawling across the back of the Horn of Africa.

Several armed helicopters flew over the convoy's heads, and their rotors kicked up a thin cloud of dust, obscuring the vehicles below but making the lights more visible.

war.

The word "war" with the stench of gunpowder suddenly penetrated the tank gunner's body. He had heard his father's description of the Vietnam War, and also heard the stories told by those veterans after drinking, and he even witnessed it himself... Fighting, it was just fighting, a small-scale conflict. The enemy would often choose to retreat after seeing the appearance of the M1A1 tank.

Now, the war really appeared before him.

Everyone has become a part of the war machine called "Atlas"... What are those people in the Army Without Borders doing? They are the elite of the elite, an army led by that man himself.

"Hey, check it out! We're about to leave, damn... the scouts at the front said they saw something weird."

The tank commander leaned out and shouted with some impatience on his face, and the infantrymen next to him who received the same order quickly stood up and ran towards their infantry fighting vehicles.

"Logistical supplies will be delivered halfway via CH-47. Let's keep moving forward!"

Keep moving forward—the mechanized combined battalion quickly reorganized, started its engines, and let the sound merge into the huge roaring ensemble.

Atlas Company launched attacks in several directions at the same time, and after twenty-four hours, they would complete the predetermined combat objectives; after forty-eight hours, they would complete the initial occupation of major cities; after seventy-two hours, they would launch a large-scale mopping-up operation - and after one hundred and forty-four hours, they would complete control of central and southern Somalia.

Then, continue towards Mogadishu.