freenovelworld Chapter 739 Battlefield Diary (1)
Chapter 739 Battlefield Diary (1)
My name is John and I'm from an ordinary small town in Ohio.
When I joined the Army, I imagined that I would be like the heroes in the movies, fighting for freedom and democracy around the world, and finally returning home with honors and medals.
However, reality gave me a loud slap in the face.
Yugoslavia, a place I had only seen on a map before, became an unforgettable nightmare for me.
That hellish beachhead and the endless locust-like swarms of suicide drones in the sky completely destroyed all my romantic fantasies about war.
Our company, Charlie Company, three hundred fully armed American soldiers, lost over a hundred men in just one hour.
They did not die in a heroic fight with the enemy, but rather were swallowed up by a sudden natural disaster. They died without dignity and even their bodies could not be found.
Commander Colonel Michael issued an order to break out in a dispersed manner.
In the chaos, the rest of us fled inland for our lives like a group of rabbits being chased by hunters.
We had abandoned all our heavy equipment, carrying only our rifles and the little ammunition we had left. Fear and despair were written on everyone's face, and all our pride and confidence had vanished.
After several hours of arduous journey, our broken company finally retreated to a small town about fifty kilometers away from the beach.
The town is not big and it looks like it has suffered some damage in the previous war, but at least those stone houses can provide us with some basic shelter.
We took refuge in an abandoned church, and everyone collapsed on the ground, gasping for breath.
No one spoke, the only sounds in the air were the suppressed breathing and the painful groans of the wounded.
The joy of surviving a disaster?
No, that doesn't exist at all.
Each of our hearts is filled with fear of the unknown enemy and grief for our lost comrades.
The company commander, Lieutenant Buckley, a Vietnam War veteran usually known for his toughness and calmness, could not control his emotions at this moment.
He punched the stone wall of the church. The back of his hand was bleeding, but he seemed to feel no pain.
“Damn it! What the hell are those things!”
He growled softly, his eyes bloodshot.
"Drones! Thousands and thousands of drones! We're like lambs to the slaughter. We don't even stand a chance of fighting back!"
“Is this war? No! This is massacre!”
My best friend, Jack, sat next to me, lit a cigarette with trembling hands and took a deep drag.
His face was as pale as paper and his eyes were empty, as if his soul was still on that beach of death.
“I saw… I saw Smith blown to pieces…”
He muttered to himself, his voice so weak that it was almost inaudible.
"Right next to me... one second he was joking with me, and the next second... nothing happened..."
I patted his shoulder and wanted to say something to comfort him, but found that I couldn't say anything.
We were all young men in our early twenties. When we were recruited into the army, we were told that we were there to defend our country and maintain world peace.
Yet here we were, in a foreign country, hunted by a murderous army the likes of which we had never seen, for a reason we didn't even fully understand.
Just as we took a breath and tried to re-establish our defenses, a strange, creepy rustling sound came from outside the town.
The sound was soft but very rhythmic, like something moving quickly on a gravel road.
"What's that sound?" a sentry asked nervously.
Everyone was alert, picked up their weapons, and hid behind the church windows to observe. Soon, we saw the source of the sound.
At the entrance of the town, a group of... a group of metal monsters that look like hounds appeared!
They walked on all fours, their movements swift and coordinated, their electronic eyes flashing with a cold red light.
On their backs and sides were mounted various small arms—machine guns, grenade launchers, and even some weapons we didn't recognize.
"Robot dog!" I exclaimed. "It's the robot dog mentioned in the intelligence briefing, the one that Longguo is supporting Yugoslavia!"
Captain Barclay reacted immediately and shouted, "Everyone, find cover! Use the terrain to your advantage and disperse the firepower!"
“Don’t confront them head-on! These things are very tough!”
However, it was too late. The robot dogs seemed to have already locked onto our location.
They rushed into the town at an astonishing speed, then quickly dispersed, using buildings and ruins as cover and attacking us from all directions.
Fighting broke out instantly, with bullets shattering the church's stained glass windows and leaving rows of bullet holes on the walls.
We fought back against the church's solid stone walls, but to little avail.
Those robot dogs are too low, move too fast, and their tactical coordination is seamless. They don't look like a group of lifeless machines at all, but more like a group of well-trained special forces.
A soldier tried to attack an approaching robot dog with an M203 grenade launcher, but as soon as the grenade was released, the robot dog dodged the attack with an incredible sideways jump, and at the same time, the machine gun on its back fired, accurately hitting the soldier's head.
Screams began to be heard inside and outside the church.
These robot dogs' attacks are precise and deadly, and they seem to be able to accurately identify our locations and weaknesses through some advanced sensors.
"Scatter! Spread out! Don't gather in groups!" Captain Barkley roared. "Go into other buildings in town! Engage in street fighting!"
We had to abandon the church, a relatively strong stronghold, and split into several groups to rush into the town's crisscrossing streets and houses.
Street fighting is our only hope. Taking advantage of complex terrain may be able to offset the numerical and technological advantages of the robot dogs.
Jack, I, and three other brothers formed a combat team. We rushed into a two-story residential building and quickly established cross-fire points on the first and second floors.
Jack was responsible for guarding the windows on the second floor and was an excellent machine gunner.
"John, see them?" Jack asked over the radio.
“Not yet,” I replied, peering cautiously out of the broken first-floor window. “But they’re definitely nearby. Be careful, these things are sneakier than the devil.”
Just as he finished speaking, a robot dog suddenly jumped out from the ruins across the street.
The grenade launcher on its back fired instantly, and a small grenade whizzed towards the second floor where we were...