Special forces soldier demobilization: Starting from the county government compound, a meteoric rise

General Smith stood blankly before the pitch-black command platform. Cold sweat, like tiny snakes, streamed down his forehead and back, quickly soaking his medal-laden general's uniform until it clung stickily to his body.

This feeling made him feel as if he had returned to the night decades ago when he was a new recruit and faced the threat of death for the first time, but the fear he felt now was ten thousand times greater than it had been then.

Before him, the Aegis fire control panel, which was once a source of global pride, was now as silent as a tombstone, without lights, without beeps, and without even a trace of the warmth of electronic equipment.

"Sir... the emergency system is completely destroyed. Every single one of our integrated circuits was burned to charcoal by that force."

The adjutant slumped in the shadows, his voice hollow like that of a soulless puppet.

"Forget about launching missiles, we can't even retrieve our anchors right now."

Smith opened his mouth, but only managed a series of hoarse "hoarse" sounds. He looked down at his hands.

That once commanding hand, which had signed countless attack orders, was now trembling violently like a withered leaf in the wind, no matter how hard it tried, it couldn't stop.

……

"Tick-tock, tick-tock."

The sound of sweat hitting the cold floor was particularly jarring in the silent cabin.

Smith finally understood what kind of "funeral" the man named Liu Ming had prepared for them.

This was not an equal naval battle at all; it was a one-sided, all-encompassing, and utterly hopeless crushing of civilization.

"They don't even need to use nuclear weapons," Smith muttered to himself, a deathly despair in his eyes.

"All it takes is one... one ordinary shore-to-ship missile gathering dust in a warehouse. No, even the oldest WWII torpedo could send our multi-billion dollar ship to the bottom of the sea to feed the fish."

He turned his head and looked out at the distant sea through the bulletproof porthole, which was now covered with tiny cracks. On that once empty horizon.

Those red and green signal lights of the Kyushu warships, filled with deathly implications, were like felines locking onto their prey, silently and cruelly watching them from the darkness.

Two nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, three Aegis cruisers, six guided-missile destroyers, and dozens of armed drones hovering low in the air, ready to swoop down at any moment.

Smith knew that within this steel jungle, thousands of launch pads were currently on standby, ready to be deployed with just a flick of a finger from the young man named Liu Ming. The next second, this place would transform into a red, magma-filled hell.

……

"Sir! A strong sonar signal has been detected! That's...that's the sound of torpedo tubes opening!"

Although the radar went dark, the most primitive passive sound pickup device, powered by a weak battery, still managed to capture that subtle sound that was enough to terrify anyone.

"Thump!"

General Smith's legs finally gave way, and he collapsed onto the floor covered with shards of glass like a lump of mud.

A warm, foul-smelling liquid quickly flowed down his trouser leg, wetting his shiny leather shoes.

He was terrified. This once-powerful general, who had run rampant in the Western Pacific and frequently boasted of "freedom of navigation" into other people's territorial waters, was utterly shattered of all courage and dignity by the immense terror born of the absolute unknown.

He was no longer the high and mighty general; he was just a mortal trembling before the Grim Reaper of the deep sea.

"We can't just wait to die...we can't just wait to die like this..."

Smith frantically groped in the dark, his fingers cutting on the glass and bleeding profusely, but he was oblivious to it; he was searching for that thing.

That "antique" that everyone laughed at when he took over as commander, and which he even threw into the warehouse at one point.

Finally, under the overturned desk, Smith found a heavy, cold metal box.

He was like a drowning man grabbing onto the only piece of driftwood, trembling, even biting with his teeth, as he pried open the box.

Inside was a high-powered radio transmitter manufactured in the 1960s, using the most primitive vacuum tube technology.

……

"This thing...this thing doesn't use semiconductors! It can dodge pulses! Quick! Give me the battery!"

Smith roared incoherently, even scrambling towards the orderly huddled in the corner.

Two minutes later, in the dark center of this completely dead nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the old machine, sealed by the dust of time for half a century, emitted a hoarse "buzzing" sound from the weak hand-cranked generator.

This was the only sound the entire invincible fleet could utter at this moment—a cry for help to the world.

Smith's hands trembled as he gripped the greasy microphone tightly, staring out the window at the approaching shadows of the Kyushu warships. His throat bobbed violently.

Then, in an almost sobbing voice, even with a hint of servility, he spoke into that one and only channel the plea that would shake the entire world and be the most longed-to-hear word in the entire nation for the past century.

"This is...this is the Enterprise..."

"Requesting a call! Requesting a call!"

"Smith requests... a request to speak directly with Mr. Liu Ming!"

He closed his eyes, tears mingling with sweat streaming down his cheeks, at the end of his trembling voice. He finally uttered that word, one he had never imagined would come from his mouth, to an Easterner.

"Help..."

"We need...to negotiate!"