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 passing by on 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 use to resist.

In other words, they were accustomed to living in peaceful times, and they 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 bloodyly 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.

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

So Atlas's special operations team, after controlling Franklin and others in the alley for a while, found no one else passing by.

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

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.

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

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

Two generations of his family have been in the military. This young man, who is also very thoughtful and capable, came to the Senate of the Rubian System Autonomous Government as an intern 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'.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

With his shy personality, he immediately started to get close to everyone in the teaching team.

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

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

Naturally, everyone in the special operations team 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 ill. If their whereabouts were exposed, it would be the end.

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. We don't have enough manpower to begin with, so we have two more guards. It will be uncomfortable if there is an emergency again."

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 first, 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 up to Franklin and squatted down.

"You said you have been harassing 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 died on the first day of the Imperial Army's attack."

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

He sighed slightly and continued to ask:

"Then you have dealt with the Imperial Army 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 these before."

Franklin reacted quickly and immediately understood what Banning meant.

"Yes, it's a communication node, a temporary node or a communication relay vehicle."

"Of course I have seen it. I can even point it out to you on the map."

The young man moved his hands subconsciously, and then realized that he was still tied up with a restraint belt.

"You see, I can't point it out to you like this."

Banning stared at 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 untied Franklin.

"Be honest, don't think about doing anything tricky."

"Don't worry~"

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

Soon, he began to mark the city map based on the records on his personal terminal.

"The communication relay vehicles of the imperial forces are basically concentrated near their temporary camps. In the city, they all use temporary communication relay nodes, which are basically distributed on the roofs of medium-rise buildings."

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

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

And this may also be a rest stop for the patrol team. You can often see patrolling imperial soldiers going in to rest for a while after arriving here.

Next is here."

Although Franklin is not a professional, and they have not explored many areas these days, they still marked six possible communication nodes on the map.

This is enough for Baninger and his team.

In addition to infiltrating Ptolemy City and investigating the movements of the imperial troops, the special operations team has another equally important task this time.

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

Of course, they only know that the data disk they carry contains some kind of electronic warfare virus, and they don't know that it actually contains a clone of Lilith.

Because the imperial remnants who retreated to Ptolemy City adopted strict communication encryption and control, especially on the front line, they strictly enforced radio discipline and confidentiality regulations, like a piece of iron.

Although Lilith's electronic warfare virus attack capability is very strong, the premise is that the opponent has a place for you to attack.

But the problem now is that the opposite imperial army would rather "cut off one arm" to reduce its own communication efficiency than give you the opportunity to infiltrate

So the only way is to send Lilith into their intranet through physical access.

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

The entire team was divided into two, one group took Franklin and his team to the safe house - a storefront in the city that had been closed for a long time provided by the garrison officers.

The other group went to the nearest imperial army communication node marked by Franklin to carry out Lilith's "implantation".

Soon, this group of people found the seven-story building that Franklin mentioned, and saw a section of the mast antenna exposed on the top of the building.

Through the analysis of its characteristics by the database built into the exoskeleton, it was also determined that this was indeed a field communication node - but the imperial remnants installed it on the roof.

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 imperial remnants, they will be hit by high-energy lasers in a short time.

And one of the two RQ220s on the Atlas side had a mechanical failure due to the previous violent use.

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

And the interference against the synthetic aperture radar of the reconnaissance satellite still exists, so the entire coalition forces can't effectively reconnaissance the city of Ptolemy for a while.

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

"Received, Lieutenant."