funbook-pk Chapter 741 Ghost Ship?
Chapter 741 Ghost Ship?
On the beachhead, Admiral Harris's face looked uglier than a dead man.
He stared blankly at the scorched earth that was repeatedly plowed by his own artillery fire and the enemy's unknown weapons, and was as bumpy as the surface of the moon. The soldiers' screams before death seemed to still echo in his ears.
The 10,000 elite American troops, the assault force he had high hopes for, were like ice cubes thrown into boiling molten steel, melting quickly and disappearing without a trace.
In the communication channel, apart from the teeth-grinding static noise, there were only sporadic, fragmented cries for help and curses, which soon fell into silence.
He still couldn't fully understand what had happened to his soldiers.
Is it some powerful new bomb? Or have the Dragons unleashed those elusive mechanical dogs again?
Or maybe... something even scarier?
The fear of the unknown was like an icy poisonous snake, tightly wrapped around his heart, making it almost impossible for him to breathe.
"Report the damage!" He shouted hoarsely to the communications officer beside him.
His voice was distorted with extreme anger and fear, but he no longer cared.
The communications officer's hands were shaking as he quickly operated the control panel in front of him, trying to contact any surviving units.
However, most of the blue dots on the screen representing their own ground forces have gone out, and the remaining ones are out of contact or are dispersing in all directions in a chaotic and disorderly manner.
"Sir... the 'Iron Hammer' assault group... was almost... almost wiped out..."
The communications officer's voice was filled with tears.
"We...we've lost contact with over 90 percent of our ground units...they...they might have..."
Harris's body swayed and he nearly fell to the ground. He held onto the edge of the command platform and managed to keep his balance.
Ninety percent! This means that of the ten thousand soldiers he sent out, at least nine thousand remained on that damn beach forever!
This is the heaviest loss the American Marines have ever suffered since the Battle of Iwo Jima!
"How could this happen... How could this happen..." He muttered to himself, his eyes empty, as if he had aged twenty years in an instant.
The military talent that he was proud of and the firepower advantage that he firmly believed in seemed so vulnerable in front of the unheard-of mysterious weapons of the Dragon Kingdom.
Just when he was feeling hopeless and almost gave up all hope, a radar operator suddenly cried out, breaking the suffocating silence in the command center.
"Sir! Unidentified targets spotted! Bearing 0-9-0, distance 50 nautical miles, over twenty in number! Approaching our fleet at a very high speed!"
"Speed... Oh my god! Over 50 knots!"
"What?!" Harris suddenly raised his head, his bloodshot eyes fixed on the radar screen.
Sure enough, at the edge of the screen, a dense mass of red dots appeared. Like a school of bloodthirsty sharks, they were rushing towards the core area of the Eagle Sauce aircraft carrier battle group at an alarming speed!
Fifty knots! What does that mean?
This means that these unidentified targets are definitely not ordinary warships or submarines!
Even the most advanced nuclear-powered aircraft carrier of the United States cannot reach such a terrifying speed when moving at full speed!
A feeling of fear, stronger than before, gripped Harris's heart.
He knew that what he was facing today was not just the small Balkan country of Yugoslavia, but a terrifying Eastern dragon with technology that was ahead of its time!
"What the hell are these?!"
Harris asked in a trembling voice. He no longer cared about the tragic scene on the beach because he realized that a greater crisis was approaching his fleet.
All his logistical supplies, all his strategic reserves, and even his own life and the lives of tens of thousands of naval officers and soldiers, depend on these three aircraft carrier battle groups.
If the failure of the beachhead only makes him lose face and his future is bleak, then the destruction of the fleet will mean the complete collapse of the Eagle Sauce's military presence in the entire Mediterranean and even Europe!
This will be catastrophic and irreversible!
"Return to the flagship immediately!" Harris made a quick decision and shouted to Lieutenant Colonel Hansen beside him, "I must command this battle personally!"
He no longer paid attention to the aftermath on the beach, nor did he care about the mechanical bird hovering in the air. He boarded the helicopter returning to the "Eisenhower" as quickly as possible.
He knew that the ensuing naval battle would determine the ultimate fate of him and his fleet.
When Harris stepped back onto the bridge of the USS Eisenhower, the Combat Command Center (CIC) was in chaos.
On the radar screen, more than twenty red dots of light representing unidentified targets were getting closer and closer. They were sailing at high speed in a strange manner, seemingly completely ignoring the waves and wind resistance, and their trajectory was difficult to predict.
"Send them a warning!" Harris ordered immediately, his voice a little hoarse from nervousness. "Use the international common channel and light signals to tell them that if they don't identify themselves and stop the ship immediately, we will regard them as hostile targets and attack them!"
The communications officer immediately followed the order and sent warning signals to the unidentified ships at maximum power.
However, after a few minutes, the other party did not respond at all, but instead approached at a faster speed, and the distance had shortened to less than 30 nautical miles.
"Sir," Lieutenant Commander Hansen said, his face pale, beads of sweat oozing from his forehead. "They... they didn't respond to our warnings. And... their trajectory is very strange. It doesn't seem like a ship operated by humans."
"It doesn't look like a ship operated by humans?" Harris frowned, a more ominous feeling welling up in his heart. "What do you mean?"
Lieutenant Colonel Hansen explained, pointing to the ever-changing red dots on the radar screen.
"Sir, you see, each of their turns is incredibly precise and swift, without the inertial delay that large ships typically experience."
"Moreover, their dispersal and assembly movements are more like a group... a group of unmanned units controlled by some kind of central command."
"Unmanned units?" Harris' heart sank. He remembered the swarms of attack drones that were wreaking havoc on the beach, and the mysterious J-10Cs that had slaughtered his F/A-18E/F fighters in the air.
Could it be that the Dragon people... the Dragon people actually possess unmanned sea attack boats?!