From cannon fodder to sweeping across thousands of stars.

Chapter 258 The mission of the special operations team

At 2 o'clock in the morning, Ptolemaic City was much quieter than before.

There are no citizens on the street who usually enjoy the "nightlife", and every household has closed its doors and windows and drawn its curtains.

Only vehicles carrying heavily armed patrol soldiers driving through the streets from time to time prove that there are still human activities in this city.

After the imperial remnants retreated to the city, in addition to using a large number of ground early warning terminals and HCP's front control capabilities to tightly defend the city's periphery to prevent the coalition forces from infiltrating, the temporary camp of the main force actually only occupied a small part of the area.

But even so, the citizens in the city are still in danger.

Guns are banned in the Lubion system, which leaves the people in the city with no weapons to resist.

In other words, they were accustomed to living in peaceful times and simply could not muster the courage to fight against the imperial troops.

In addition, the remnants of the empire 'requisitioned' a large number of civilian vehicles to patrol the city, and took control of the municipal center to obtain surveillance rights throughout the city. Therefore, the 'resistance' of a small number of brave citizens was quickly and bloody suppressed.

Even though these imperial soldiers were on good terms with the citizens under normal circumstances, as long as they discovered activities that might threaten them, they would not hold back at all in suppressing them.

This simple and unpretentious fighting style did create a lot of trouble for the imperial occupying forces.

Once he graduates and enters the Senate, he will officially become a federal Republican.

"Are you a special operations team?! Infiltrate into the city to conduct reconnaissance? So are the garrison going to attack soon?"

This time, after the remnants of the empire retreated to Ptolemaic City again, and knowing that the federal troops were coming back, Franklin and the others became even bolder, and even planned to attack the patrols and seize weapons.

When facing the invasion of an enemy country, these young people often make some aggressive, radical, dangerous but brave actions.

"Don't ask questions that shouldn't be asked, and don't pry around."

But no matter what, the overall combat effectiveness of the imperial soldiers on the opposite side is not comparable to that of civilians.

This status also makes him a kind of 'youth leader' in his circle of friends.

Baninger and the others quickly figured out the identities of these young people - they were the 'aspiring young people' who were least afraid of death in the city.

Young man, full of blood.

After a period of observation, Franklin also confirmed that these heavily armed unknown persons were not members of the imperial troops.

Especially Franklin Abraham, the leader of this group of young men.

In this case, a spontaneous 'curfew' occurred throughout the city.

This young man, who has two generations of soldiers in his family and is very thoughtful and capable, came to work as an intern in the Senate of the Rubian System Autonomous Government before he officially graduated.

Now, the 'Federal Republican Party', which has become one of the two major parties in the federation, has become an 'associate member'.

As early as when the Imperial Army first occupied Ptolemaic City, Franklin mobilized many young people of his own age to harass the Imperial Army's temporary camps like urban guerrillas.

That's why Franklin and the others were chased away like mice after being discovered today.

If you don’t have weapons, just use the most traditional Molotov cocktails and homemade smoke bombs.

Taking advantage of this period of time, the six young men who were controlled had completed their individual interrogations one by one.

He had a social cow personality and immediately started to get close to everyone in the teaching team.

Therefore, after Atlas's special operations team controlled Franklin and others to stay in the alley for a while, no one else was found passing by.

The vanguard retorted coldly, and the young man squatted down by the wall again.

The people in the special operations team naturally didn't bother to talk to him, because they were still worried about how to deal with these young people.

Obviously these people are citizens of the city. In other words, these taxpayers can also be regarded as Atlas's employers, so they certainly cannot be killed directly as enemies.

But Baninger and the others didn't dare to let them go. Who knew if any of these young people were mentally unstable. If their whereabouts were exposed, it would be over.

It is not unheard of in history that an entire team was destroyed due to a moment of weakness.

"If you ask me, find a place to lock them up temporarily and throw some food and water at them, and then let them out after the large army enters the city."

"If they want to eat, drink, and go to the toilet, can't they tie their hands and feet? There is still a risk."

"Leave two people to guard?"

"Goodbye. There are not enough manpower in the first place, so we have assigned two more guards. It will be uncomfortable if there is another emergency."

The members of the special operations team were exchanging words with each other in the communication channel.

Although there was an emergency plan, they really didn't expect to be so unlucky that they encountered it just after leaving the sewer.

"Forget it, let's handle it according to the emergency plan. We can't let these people go before the operation is over. Let's find a safe spot and temporarily detain them, and then continue the mission. Anyway, the coalition forces will launch an attack in two days. "

Baninger ended the discussion and decided to lead the team to carry out the mission as originally planned.

Then, he thought of something, and walked to Franklin and squatted down.

"You said you have been harassing the imperial troops during this time?" "Yes, sir."

"This is a very dangerous thing. Aren't you afraid of death?"

"My father was an officer in the garrison and was killed on the first day of the Imperial Army's attack."

Baninger was stunned for a moment. He really didn't expect to get such an answer.

He sighed inaudibly and continued to ask:
"Then you have dealt with the imperial troops in the city. Have you noticed the facilities with antenna array masts these days?"

"Sir, you should be referring to the communication node, right? My father taught me this before."

Franklin reacted quickly and immediately understood what Baninger meant.

"That's right, it's a communication node. It can be a temporary node or a communication relay vehicle."

"Of course I've seen it. I can even point it out on the map for you."

The young man moved his hands subconsciously, and then realized that he was still bound by a restraint belt.

"Look, there's nothing I can do or do to point it out to you like this."

Baninger stared into the young man's eyes for a moment, then looked at another team member behind Franklin and tilted his head.

The latter immediately stepped forward, took out a dagger and loosened Franklin's bonds.

"Be honest and don't think about making small moves."

"Don't worry~"

Franklin moved his stiffly tied arms, and then skillfully took out a personal terminal and a paper map from the backpack that had been checked by members of the special operations team.

Soon, he started marking the city map based on the records on his personal terminal.

"The communication relay vehicles of the imperial troops are basically concentrated near their temporary camps. Inside the city, they use temporary communication relay nodes. These nodes are basically distributed on the roofs of mid-rise buildings."

As Franklin spoke, he drew a five-pointed star on the map.

"This is our current location. It's almost a kilometer away from here. There is a seven-story building at the street corner. There is a communication node on the roof. When we passed by before, I saw the antenna exposed on the roof. .

And this may also be a rest stop for patrols. It is often seen that patrolling imperial soldiers will go in to rest for a while after arriving here.

Next, there’s this place.”

Although Franklin was not a professional, and the areas they had 'explored' these days were not many, they still marked six locations on the map that might be communication nodes.

This is enough for Baninger and the others.

In addition to infiltrating Ptolemaic City and detecting the movements of the imperial troops, the special operations team's mission this time also had another equally important task.

That is to find a brigade-level communication node and transmit a clone of Lilith into it.

Of course, they only knew that the data disk they carried contained some kind of electronic warfare virus, but they did not know that it actually contained Lilith's clone.

Because the remnants of the imperial army retreated to Ptolemaic City, strict communication encryption and control were adopted. Especially on the front line, radio discipline and confidentiality regulations were strictly enforced, just like a monolith.

Although Lilith's electronic warfare virus attack ability is very strong, the premise is that the opponent has a place where you can attack.

But the problem now is that the imperial army on the opposite side would rather 'cut off an arm' to reduce its own communication efficiency than give you a chance to penetrate.
So the only way is to send Lilith into their intranet through physical access.

When members of the special operations team released several sparrow-sized flapping-wing bionic reconnaissance drones, they confirmed that the surrounding environment was normal.

The whole group was divided into two, and one group escorted Franklin and the others to the safe house - a long-closed facade of their home in the city provided by a garrison officer.

The other group went to the nearest Imperial Army communication node marked by Franklin to carry out Lilith's 'implantation' work.

Soon, the group found the seven-story building Franklin was talking about and saw a mast antenna exposed on the top of the building.

By analyzing its characteristics through the exoskeleton's built-in database, it was determined that this was indeed a field communication node - but the remnants of the empire placed it on the roof of the building.

Due to the complex environment in the city and the presence of a large number of civilians, if the coalition forces want to attack such key targets, they must conduct reconnaissance to determine their precise coordinates.

But the problem is that after conventional high-altitude drones enter the air defense circle of the remaining imperial soldiers, they will be hit by high-energy lasers within a short time.

Among the two RQ220s on Atlas's side, another one suffered a mechanical failure due to previous violent use.

This resulted in the huge coalition front line having to rely on the only remaining RQ220 for battlefield surveillance to prevent the imperial army from launching a large-scale counterattack like last time.

And the interference against the synthetic aperture radar of reconnaissance satellites still existed, so the entire coalition was unable to conduct effective reconnaissance of the Ptolemaic city for a while.

"Let's try this communication node first, York, fly the drone up to see the situation!"

"Copy that, Lieutenant."

(End of this chapter)