Chapter 199: Nonsense, are you trying to make excuses for your failure?

As an experienced commander, he knew that all sorts of accidents could happen on the battlefield, but twenty-three advanced fighter jets shot down in less than ten minutes? This had already exceeded the scope of an accident; it was simply a disaster!

"Sir, we need to report to headquarters immediately," the Chief of Staff said in a low voice, "this could be..."

"Shut up!" Hamilton snapped, cutting him off. "Don't jump to conclusions before we understand the situation! I don't believe those Long Country people who are still using old-fashioned equipment can shoot down our fighter jets! There must be another reason!"

But deep down, he had already begun to waver.

Although Wilson was in an abnormal state, he was an experienced pilot, not some novice easily scared out of his wits. If he said the Long Country people had special weapons...

"Pass the order down," Hamilton said through gritted teeth, "send out reconnaissance planes later; I want to know exactly what happened!"

……

Half an hour later, inside the Di Guo Air Force Command.

A group of Advanced officers were in an emergency meeting discussing this disastrous failure.

The playback equipment in the center of the conference room was replaying the radio communications from the battle.

"I've been hit! That wasn't an ordinary Anti-aircraft Machine Gun! It's too precise!"

"Damn it! Something is chasing me! It turned! This is impossible!"

"Attention everyone! Disperse! Disperse! They have some kind of area-effect explosive weapon!"

"My God! They can see us even on the ground! There must be Radar guidance!"

"Mayday! Mayday! I've been locked on! Can't shake it! Ahhhh—"

The recording was filled with terror, chaos, and despair, and almost all of them ended with screams and static noise.

These sounds were hair-raising, and every officer could feel the horror of the battlefield within them.

"According to the description of the survivor, Lieutenant Wilson," the Intelligence Officer explained,

"The Long Country military used three types of weapons we have never seen before: an Anti-aircraft Machine Gun with an Advanced Fire Control System capable of tracking high-speed targets with astonishing precision; a Multi-barrel rocket launch system that can form a large-scale kill zone in the air; and most terrifying of all, they have some kind of Missile that can track the heat source of an aircraft, which cannot be shaken off no matter how one maneuvers."

The conference room was in an uproar.

The weapons in these descriptions sounded even more advanced than much of the equipment currently in service in Di Guo; how could they possibly appear in the hands of a country that had just been founded and had a weak industrial base?

"Absurd!" an Air Force general slammed the table and stood up. "This is all nonsense! Long Country doesn't even have a few decent factories; how could they produce such cutting-edge weapons? Lieutenant Wilson must have been terrified and hallucinated!"

"What about those twenty-three planes?" another officer asked calmly. "Are they hallucinations too?"

Hamilton stared at the tabletop, his face livid: "I think... we may have encountered some unknown Nature phenomenon. Perhaps abnormal magnetic field interference or special atmospheric conditions caused our Radar and communication systems to fail."

This far-fetched explanation made many officers frown, but in the absence of being able to accept the truth, many preferred to believe this "reasonable" guess.

"Regardless," Hamilton continued, "we cannot sit idly by. I suggest organizing a large-scale air raid to destroy the Long Country military with overwhelming force. If they really have some special weapons, we will crush them with numbers!"

The meeting eventually approved this proposal, but everyone knew in their hearts that they were facing an unprecedented threat.

……

Meanwhile, at the temporary command post of the Long Country military, a simple yet enthusiastic celebration was underway.

Li Yunlong stood before the table, raising his glass high: "Comrades, today is a day worth remembering! We have proven with actual actions that the myth of Di Guo's invincibility has been shattered! Their planes are vulnerable before our Anti-aircraft weapon!"

The soldiers erupted into deafening cheers, their weary faces beaming with the joy of Victory.

These veterans who had been struggling on the battlefield for years felt for the first time the immense confidence brought by technological superiority.

……

Hamilton stood in the communications room, his palms covered in sweat.

On the other end of the phone, the voice of the headquarters officer was as harsh as a knife.

"Say that again? All twenty-four shot down? Only one returned?" The voice on the other end was full of disbelief.

"Yes, sir." Hamilton swallowed his saliva. "The Long Country military seems to be equipped with some kind of unprecedented Anti-aircraft Weapon System, capable of—"

"Nonsense!" the voice on the other end snapped, cutting him off. "Long Country doesn't even have a few decent factories, and you're telling me they have advanced weapons capable of shooting down a 'Sabre'? Hamilton, are you using such ridiculous excuses to cover up your own command failure?"

Hamilton gripped the phone, his knuckles turning white. In his twenty-year military career, he had never felt so aggrieved.

"Sir, the pilots under my command are the elite of the elite; they couldn't possibly make such low-level mistakes. Lieutenant Wilson's description is very clear: Long Country has some kind of Missile that can track aircraft, as well as a high-precision Radar Fire Control System."

The other end of the phone was silent for a few seconds, followed by a cold laugh.

"Hamilton, do you know what you're saying? Even the Polar Bear doesn't have a weapon system of this level, let alone Long Country? That country that doesn't even have a few decent heavy industries and just crawled out of a civil war?"

"But the fact is—"

"The fact is you messed up!" the voice on the other end roared.

"I don't care what excuse you use; headquarters needs results, not excuses! I'll give you three days; I want to see the Long Country military driven back to the border, otherwise, pack your bags and go home!"

The phone hung up, leaving Hamilton standing there, trembling all over.

"Motherfucker!" He punched the table, causing other officers in the communications room to glance over.

The adjutant approached cautiously: "Sir, are you alright?"

Hamilton took a deep breath, trying to calm his emotions.

The training from his twenty-year military career told him that now was not the time to lose his temper.

"Johnson, pull up Wilson's recording. I want to hear his description myself."

Half an hour later, Lieutenant Wilson on the hospital bed still had a dazed look in his eyes, but under the effect of sedatives, he was able to narrate more clearly.

"Sir, I swear it wasn't a hallucination. I saw with my own eyes Brown's plane being chased by those Rocket Shells; no matter how he maneuvered to evade, he couldn't shake them off. And those Anti-aircraft Machine Guns, the precision was incredibly high, as if someone had installed a bullseye on the plane."

Hamilton frowned: "You mean... those weapons can 'lock on' to you?"

"That's right!" Wilson became agitated.

"We fly so high and so fast that normal Anti-aircraft Machine Guns can't hit us at all, but their machine guns... they're almost like they have a life of their own and can 'predict' our trajectory. And those Rocket Shells... sir, they can turn! I saw with my own eyes a Rocket Shell chase Morrison's plane and make a ninety-degree turn!"