TL: Skye
Having made up his mind to wage war against Garcia, Yu-jin made one request to Pedro.
"We need to win with minimal casualties. If it looks like we'll suffer mass casualties, it's better to abandon the operation entirely."
Essentially, he was asking Pedro to reduce the death toll as much as possible.
"Is there a particular reason we need to go that far?"
"Enemy soldiers are someone's sons, brothers, and younger siblings too. We can't kill countless young men just because they were following orders."
Pedro was deeply moved.
'A true leader for San Marcos has finally appeared...!'
As history has proven time and again, those in power will not hesitate to burn their own people to protect their position.
Hitler started wars. Stalin purged over a million people. Mao Zedong destroyed his nation's history and culture.
But Yu-jin was different. Here was a man willing to abandon an attack to reduce casualties, even among enemy forces. Upon witnessing this philosophy firsthand, Pedro shed tears of overwhelming emotion.
"Hrgh...!"
He stayed up all night devising battle plans.
'I will never... disappoint Your Excellency!'
Using the intelligence that SIA agents had risked their lives to obtain, he agonized over how to end the war with the fewest possible casualties.
And as always, he found the answer.
Cut off the enemy's supply lines.
The results of the operation were evident from day one.
"How did it go?"
"Sir! We destroyed twelve enemy transport trucks."
"Casualty count?"
"We focused our strikes on the rear of the convoys, so there were only minor injuries."
"Good. Well done."
War is fought with weapons, but weapons are ultimately wielded by people.
And people cannot move if they cannot eat.
Pedro made full use of high-performance drones with an operational range exceeding twenty kilometers, sending them behind enemy lines to destroy incoming supply trucks.
Honestly, as a soldier, part of him felt this was somewhat underhanded.
'But right now, honoring His Excellency's great vision is more important.'
Following Yu-jin's request mattered far more than showing off his own manliness.
Anyway.
The enemy forces entrenched on the mountaintop would now have no choice but to starve.
Garcia had brought most of his 1st Infantry Division and Artillery Brigade to completely block the western route through the Central Basin.
That number totaled sixteen thousand. Naturally, the amount of food they consumed daily was enormous.
Each soldier might have brought some personal supplies, but drinking water and rations would be woefully insufficient.
They say a person can survive thirty days without food, but that's just being technically alive. After only five days of starvation, people lose all sense of reason.
Desertion would inevitably increase as soldiers fled from hunger.
'Let's see how long you can hold out.'
Pedro had no doubt.
No doubt that he would lose.
"Tell Captain Jose and Lieutenant Carlos to report to my quarters immediately."
With that, he moved on to the next phase.
***
"Damn it! Another one hit?!"
"Yes, sir... Five trucks from the 3rd Transport Unit were completely destroyed while approaching from the rear."
"Drones again?"
"...Yes."
"Son of a bitch!"
Garcia ripped off his beret and hurled it to the ground.
The 1st Infantry Division, which had blocked the Central Mountain pass in preparation for battle against the Armored Division, was crumbling without having fired a single shot.
The reason was simple. Food wasn't coming.
"This is driving me insane."
Garcia looked up at the sky. The blue expanse was utterly peaceful, without a single cloud. But he could feel invisible eyes watching from that serene sky.
"Drones... those goddamn drones!"
Drones of unknown origin were monitoring the 1st Infantry Division's supply routes day and night.
Worse, they were highly advanced. The moment a truck carrying food or water approached, drones would appear without fail.
What infuriated him even more was that they never attacked people.
At first, they only targeted the rear of the convoys. Later, they would encircle the trucks as if inviting surrender, waiting until every person had disembarked.
Once word of this spread, transport crews made it routine to abandon their trucks and flee the moment they spotted a drone.
Of course, Garcia was no fool.
As soon as he grasped the situation, he gathered his officers and devised countermeasures.
He hid troops along the supply routes and ordered them to shoot down the drones with Javelin anti-tank missiles provided by Chevron when they appeared.
But there were simply too many drones.
Shoot down one, and two more appeared. Shoot down two, and four more came.
They were burning through anti-tank missiles faster than they could destroy drones.
'Just how many do they have...!'
Garcia felt as though he were drowning, seawater rising past the top of his head.
And within three days, that feeling became reality.
"D-Division Commander, sir. The men's discontent has reached its limit. Since yesterday, they've been surviving on nothing but a handful of cornmeal."
Food supplies had finally run out.
"Tell those transport bastards to carry the supplies on foot. If they walk, the drones won't shoot!"
He desperately tried to find a solution.
"All that food... on foot, sir?"
"Yes! I don't care if their legs give out or their backs break, tell them to carry it themselves!"
"U-understood."
But that solution didn't last long either.
"What?! Desertion? The entire transport company?"
"...Yes."
Faced with an impossible order, the soldiers responsible for delivering food had simply run away.
"......"
We're going to starve to death without even fighting.
That was the thought running through Garcia's mind.
"...This won't do."
Finally, he made his decision.
"We retreat."
"What? Are you crazy? You want to abandon this position?"
Despite his brother Dani Motiñu's immediate protest, Garcia's resolve did not waver.
"If we stay here, we all starve. It's better to fall back to headquarters. We have stockpiled food and ammunition there. We hold out while requesting support from Chevron."
"How are we supposed to fight the Armored Division on open ground?!"
"You still don't get it, do you?"
Garcia retrieved a piece of drone wreckage from the corner of the tent.
"What does this look like to you?"
"A drone our guys shot down."
"Does this look like just any ordinary drone to you?"
Garcia's hands rummaged through the debris.
"See this? What do you think these chips are?"
"I... don't know?"
"They're AP chips."
"What's that?"
"Ultra-compact CPUs. This drone is cutting-edge military technology you'd only find in America. And they're operating hundreds of these things."
"So what does that matter?"
"Does San Marcos have the money for weapons like this?"
"You don't mean...?"
Garcia pointed east, toward Libertad.
"Yu-jin Choi has a sponsor somewhere too."
Garcia spoke as if explaining to a child.
"We can't win this war as things stand. We need to buy time somehow and request additional support from Chevron before we can fight back."
"Ah..."
The retreat was decided.
*
"The enemy is abandoning their trenches and moving out!"
At the observation officer's report, Pedro flashed a triumphant smile.
"Finally, the rats are crawling out of their hole."
Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
All that waiting was finally paying off.
Pedro immediately grabbed his radio.
"We pursue the enemy starting now."
Krrrrrrrr!
Eight heavy M41 tanks belched black exhaust as they rolled out in formation.
The rumbling of the earth traveled up through his feet. Pedro quickly switched frequencies to call the men with the most critical role in this operation.
Crackle. Static.
"Jose, Carlos. Do you read?"
[Yes, Commander. Standing by.]
Through the static-filled radio, Jose's sharp, low voice came through.
"The rabbit hunt has begun. They're heading your way. Hold the net tight so it doesn't tear."
[We won't let a single rat slip through.]
"Good. See you there."
After ending the transmission, Pedro boarded his armored vehicle.
*
By the time the blazing sun hung on the western ridge, Garcia's retreating column was nothing short of a living hell.
"Huff... huff... water... please, some water..."
After three days without food, the soldiers were no longer soldiers.
Dragging their rifles like walking sticks, they looked more like routed survivors than military personnel.
The undisciplined column stretched for several kilometers, and countless men abandoned their heavy packs along the roadside.
But the burning thirst and physical agony were not the only things tormenting them.
The real weapon driving them mad was something else entirely.
"Wh-what is this?"
[Return to the warm embrace of your family!]
[Turn back and you can eat tacos until you burst!]
[You were born to be loved~]
Leaflets dropped by the Special Battalion that had infiltrated across the mountain range were shaking their resolve.
Gulp.
The sound of dry swallows echoed throughout the column.
After three days of starvation and the constant terror of death, their fear of commanding officers was nothing but a thin veneer.
One soldier clutched a leaflet with trembling hands.
Gulp.
The soldiers' eyes wavered.
*
And that evening, as the sun set and darkness fell, they began to move one by one.
Rustle. Rustle.
Soldiers vanished into the forest from the rear of the column, from the middle, and even from the lead group.
By the time the officers noticed and tried to stop them, there was no way to control hundreds, thousands of soldiers disappearing into the darkness.
"You bastards! Where do you think you're going! Stay in formation! Get back here!"
Bang! Bang!
Some drew pistols and fired into the air, but a broken dam could not be plugged.
"D-Division Commander, sir. Half the 3rd Battalion has vanished!"
"Same with the 2nd Battalion! Some officers may have deserted too. Several radios have gone silent!"
At the sudden reports, Garcia...
"What the hell! Has everyone lost their minds? There's food at headquarters!"
He was losing his grip on reason, consumed by fear and rage.
Enemies pursued from behind. Subordinates fled from all sides.
There was only one path to survival: reach headquarters before things got any worse.
"Damn it! Maximum speed, we retreat now!"
"But sir, the men's stamina..."
"Shut up! I don't care! Anyone who disobeys will be executed on the spot!"
Garcia thought to himself.
'I just need to get back!'
Get there, fill their bellies, open the armory, regroup, and request support from Chevron. Then they'd have a chance.
No. They had to have a chance.
Garcia couldn't see anything else.
Desertion continued unabated, but...
After staying awake through the night, pushing forward without rest, they finally spotted it: the end of the gorge, the entrance to the road leading to headquarters.
"We made it! We're alive! Once we pass that point, headquarters is just ahead!"
But...
"Almost there! Everyone, stay focused..."
More than half their forces had already vanished.
"No, this can't be..."
And the operation Pedro had prepared didn't end there.
"What... what is that?"
The road that should have been open was blocked.
Massive boulders, logs, and transport trucks that appeared to be their own had formed a massive barricade, completely sealing the entrance to the gorge.
And it wasn't just the road that was blocked.
"Surrender and we won't shoot! I repeat! Drop your weapons and surrender! If you don't resist, we won't fire!"
Soldiers with blackened, camouflaged faces looked down at them from positions where heavy machine guns had been mounted throughout the area.
Unlike the exhausted routed soldiers below, their eyes burned with fierce intensity.
"Y-you...!"
There was no doubt. This was the Special Battalion that Pedro had painstakingly trained.
"Impossible... this can't be! Even the Special Battalion couldn't have crossed those mountains...?"
Cliffs that even mountain goats would struggle to traverse, and yet an entire battalion with heavy equipment had infiltrated and cut off their escape!
Garcia couldn't believe it.
Of course, he couldn't just stand there doing nothing.
"Break through! Clear those obstacles! We live if we get past them!"
He screamed in desperation, but his soldiers no longer had the strength to lift their weapons.
And then.
"D-Division Commander, sir! From behind...!"
Wheeeeeeen!
A swarm of drones blackening the sky was approaching, sealing off any retreat.
At least two thousand of them. Like a massive plague of locusts, the drone armada had conquered the sky.
Krrrrrummmble!
And beneath them, a tank column advanced, kicking up clouds of dust as they shook the earth.
Ahead: the Special Battalion's barricade. Behind: the Armored Division's tanks. Above: two thousand attack drones.
Meanwhile, their own forces numbered less than half of what they'd started with.
"Ah... ahhh..."
Garcia collapsed to his knees, sensing total defeat.
*****
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