0137 Joint Multi-Party Strike

"Bang, bang, bang! Pfft, pfft, pfft!"

After a lightning-fast exchange of fire, Hou Rui managed to land a shot on the masked man's shoulder first, distorting his posture and ruining his aim. This was the only reason Hou Rui hadn't been riddled with holes by the man's point-blank spray of bullets.

As Hou Rui tumbled to the ground, the masked man regained his balance. He dropped into a semi-crouch, his M16A4 already leveled at Hou Rui's upper body, his finger tightening on the trigger.

"Bang! Pfft!"

Two bullets whistled past each other in mid-air. Hou Rui’s shot struck the masked man squarely between the brows, while the man’s shot grazed just above Hou Rui’s shoulder. Had the masked man been able to fire again, he surely would have lowered his muzzle to pierce Hou Rui’s heart, but with his brain matter destroyed and his central nervous system severed, he never got the chance.

The barrage of gunfire had already alerted the Coalition guards, who were now rushing toward the warehouse. Hou Rui scrambled to his feet and dashed over to the corpse, tearing off the black hood to reveal the face of a standard Westerner. Before he could investigate further, forty-five Coalition guards armed with AK-47s stormed through the warehouse gate, their weapons immediately trained on him.

"Don't shoot! I'm Second Lieutenant Douglas. I encountered this enemy, and I was the one who fired the shots!" Hou Rui raised his pistol while slapping his Coalition uniform to identify himself.

A sergeant who spoke English arrived shortly after. Once he verified Hou Rui’s rank, the guards lowered their weapons and began examining the body of the man Hou Rui had killed.

At the same moment, two kilometers away from the military hospital, at a Coalition vehicle depot, "Blue Eyes" was picking off targets from a high vantage point. With a single shot, he pierced the back of a Coalition officer attempting to flee.

As the officer’s body slumped to the ground, Blue Eyes had already neutralized all twenty-some guards in the depot. He slung his M16A4 rifle over his shoulder and climbed down from the high steel frame. Crouching at the garage entrance, he scanned the area cautiously before pressing his comms unit. "This is Unit One. Strike preparations are complete."

"Unit Two, complete."
"Unit Three, complete."
"Unit Four, complete."
"Unit Fifteen, complete."

One by one, the team members reported in. Most were in their designated positions, but...

"Unit Eleven, do you copy?" Blue Eyes’ brow furrowed. One member hadn't checked in. Had there been a complication?

The comms channel crackled with faint static, but there was no response.

"Boss, could it be a comms failure?" a team member speculated.

"We don't have time to wait. We begin guiding the fire in three minutes. Once the mission is complete, everyone withdraws to the east. We rendezvous at the sewage treatment plant and evacuate the city." Responsible for the lives of his team, Blue Eyes could not afford to hesitate; he had to abandon the attempt to reach Unit Eleven.

After finalizing the follow-up orders, Blue Eyes pulled a palm-sized metal box from his tactical pack, opened it, and tossed it into the bed of a nearby Coalition pickup truck before vanishing into the shadows of the city.

Ten thousand meters above Kismayo, a U.S. Air Force B-1 Lancer bomber was cruising at high speed. When the crew spotted over a dozen clear radar blips, the sergeant immediately reported to the pilot, "Sir, we have received the guidance signal from the ground. We are ready to strike at any time."

"Excellent. Prepare the cluster bombs. I want the first wave to completely annihilate their vehicles and inflict maximum casualties on their combatants. As for the rest, we'll see if the 'short-legs' and local forces can handle it." As soon as the pilot finished speaking, the cabin bathed in a harsh red light, signaling that the Lancer had entered attack mode. The officers at the consoles began issuing a rapid series of commands, setting the efficient machine of death into full motion.

"Sir, should we notify those behind us? Inform them that the attack has begun?" the communications officer asked tentatively.

"No need to bother. This is third-party airspace, after all; if we’re intercepted, it’ll be a headache. Maintain radio silence. Once they see the fire in the city, those 'short-legged' guys will start their work on their own."

At that very instant, in a forest two kilometers outside Kismayo, an elite detachment of Ethiopian and Somali government forces was waiting in silence. This joint operation involving several nations aimed to decapitate the core leadership of the Liberation Coalition, which was why these eighty-plus elite soldiers had infiltrated the area, waiting for the right moment to strike the city.

In the heavy atmosphere, a Somali sergeant armed with an M16A4 crept up to the commanding major. After checking that no one was watching, he whispered, "Sir, how much longer until we launch the assault?"

"Don't be impatient. Once the U.S. bombing begins, their heavy equipment is destroyed, and their units are thrown into chaos, we move. By then, the second echelon in the east and the third in the south will provide full support. All we have to do is take out Garcia himself and a few of their colonels, and the civil war in our country might finally come to an end." The major, never taking his eyes off his night-vision binoculars, spoke with utter confidence.

"Major, we only have 25 men across these three echelons, but the Liberation Coalition has over 20,000 troops in Kismayo. Can we really succeed?" The sergeant holding the M16A4 remained skeptical; the sheer disparity in numbers—being outnumbered eight hundred to one—was daunting.

"Heh, you haven't seen the power of the American 'metal hell.' Just wait and watch the show. That isn't a weapon measured by soldier counts. If the Americans had been willing to send a few more planes, we wouldn't even need infantry. The bombing alone could level the entire city; no one could survive that rain of fire." As the major spoke, the first flames of an explosion rose high into the air in the distance.

Hou Rui had just reached the hospital gate when a sharp, piercing sound ripped through the air. Before he could even realize it was an air strike, the first cluster bomb dropped from the Lancer plummeted toward a Coalition fuel depot. The 15-meter-long bomb casing split open in mid-air, scattering nearly a hundred submunitions across a 55-meter radius as they plummeted down.

"BOOM!"

As the small explosives hit the ground, a dense, continuous roar of detonations merged into one. Every fuel tank, transport vehicle, and pipeline in the depot was hit simultaneously. Within two seconds, a massive chain reaction turned the entire fuel depot into a giant fireball, the blinding orange flames illuminating half the city.

"Damn it! It must be American high-altitude bombers. Only they have the capability for such a deep-penetration strike." Though he was still at a distance, the shockwave of the massive explosion sent Hou Rui stumbling. He stood frozen, staring at the colossal fireball above the depot, muttering to himself in a daze.

Using the burning fuel depot as a calibration point and guided by satellite mapping, the Lancer ten thousand meters above became a firework of destruction, launching a relentless, cruel, and perfectly accurate barrage. The Lancer unleashed cluster bomb after cluster bomb, sweeping across Coalition military targets in Kismayo. In less than two minutes, the Coalition’s command center, supply depots, vehicle yards, and several barracks were decimated. The Coalition units stationed in the city were completely stunned by the air raid.

From his position near the military hospital, Hou Rui watched as explosions erupted one after another, continuously rocking the city and the ground beneath his feet.

A Coalition building directly in front of him took a guided bomb. The projectile pierced the roof, punched through two floors, and detonated between the second and third levels. Hou Rui watched as flames erupted from every window, the building’s frame bulging outward before collapsing in a deafening roar, sending a cloud of dust and smoke dozens of meters into the air.

To his right, a makeshift stronghold built from abandoned tanks and armored vehicles held over a dozen armed pickup trucks. Just as a group of Coalition soldiers rushed over to move the vehicles, a cluster bomb descended from the sky. As the rod-shaped submunitions hit, the parking lot was swept from left to right by a chain of relentless explosions.

Whether it was the multi-ton tanks, armored vehicles, or pickup trucks, everything was pulverized in the dense, violent blasts. Shrapnel flew for hundreds of meters, the metal frames twisted and deformed in the intense heat, and the long barrels of the tanks were bent and slumped toward the ground. As for the soldiers who had rushed in, they were obliterated, leaving not even a trace behind.