Arc of Fire

Wang Zhong immediately rushed to the railing on the rooftop and lifted his binoculars.

"I can’t see anything!”

Brother Peter: “Of course, this device can hear much further than it can see! The problem is that sound takes time to travel, and the terrain might distort it.

"It’s possible there are more than three motorcycles.”

He widened his eyes and took another look at the sound array setup.

—A millimeter-wave radar that can detect ground units?

Or is it not emitting electromagnetic waves and purely passive?

He walked around the sound array, pointing at the wire and asking, “What’s this wire for, a sound amplifier?”

"No, it’s for the base motor.” Peter pointed to his own ears, “The recognition of sound relies on my blessed ears.”

He changed his terms three times before landing on a more formal address.

Peter frowned: “How could you be so lacking in common sense, General? The gifted Monks are about half men, half women.”

Wang Zhong: “I just happened to meet ladies, sorry. When will the enemy arrive?”

Brother Peter took out a watch, noted the time on a clipboard, then took out a slide rule, checked the numbers on the ruler, and copied them onto the clipboard.

Wang Zhong leaned in to look at the pair of rulers and realized they were specially designed for Doppler calculations, a kind of mechanical computer.

At that moment, the Monk finished his calculations: “According to my calculations, we should still have ten minutes.”

Wang Zhong snapped his fingers and said to Grigori, “Prepare to ambush them. The enemy is on three motorcycles, with an estimated six to nine enemies arriving within ten minutes!”

Grigori turned and left, and soon Wang Zhong saw him appear downstairs, starting to assign tasks.

The terrain of Karlinovka was much simpler than in Peniye, with just one central village road, no side alleys, and the whole village was like a straight intestine.

Grigori instructed the guards to hide the cars in the courtyard by the roadside, covered them with hay used for feeding horses, and arranged the machine guns in the church bell tower, covering the entire road.

Wang Zhong also went downstairs to personally check the condition of the new soldiers he had brought.

The new soldiers were very excited and eager to try.

Dmitri, who excelled at gunnery, had a worried expression and complained to Wang Zhong, “General, why am I stuck guarding the cars? I want to fight too. Can the car drive away on its own here?”

Wang Zhong: “Idiot, I’m having you guard the car with the engine running in case we need to make a quick getaway in an emergency.”

Dmitri: “Run? It’s just three motorcycles, at most nine enemies, we outnumber them, and we have the element of surprise!”

Wang Zhong: “On the battlefield, you always have to be prepared for the unexpected, always have an escape route.”

After speaking, Wang Zhong thought to himself, geez, I sound like I’m an experienced veteran who’s been in the army for fifty years!

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However, whether it was Wang Zhong from Earth or the original owner of this body, Aleksei Konstantinovich Rokossov, neither was much older than Dmitri.

But Dmitri didn’t think about any of this and instead nodded earnestly, “I’ll remember that, General.”

With such a serious response, Wang Zhong himself felt somewhat embarrassed and quickly turned around and shouted to Grigori, “Defeating the enemy isn’t enough! I want prisoners, Sergeant Major Grigori!”

The Sergeant Major nodded: “Understood.”

Then he turned to the young men and said, “You’ll shoot the first and third motorcycles; leave the second one to me. I’ll capture one alive.”

"Can you do it alone?” a young man asked.

Grigori smiled slightly, giving no answer.

At that moment, a Lieutenant from the Guardian Army rushed out of the post office’s entrance and saluted Wang Zhong, “Report, General, Brother Peter says the enemy is within visual range!”

"Got it.” Wang Zhong immediately switched to bird’s-eye view. At this time, his own vision was limited to the village road because he was on the ground, but since there were machine gunners in the bell tower, he could directly command them, and their field of vision was shared with him.

The two machine gunners concealed themselves, lying at the edge of the bell tower windows observing outward, just in time to see the three motorcycles in the field.

The motorcycle riders were all in black leather jackets; on Earth, this type of jacket was exclusive to the Sturmtiger motorcycle troops. Other motorcycle units had to custom order these jackets.

An officer whose rank couldn’t be discerned dismounted, stood at the front of the lineup, and observed Karlinovka through binoculars.

Wang Zhong shifted his view as well, confirming that his people were well hidden.

Then he saw the huge sound array on top of the post office.

Well alright, it seems they can’t be hidden anymore.

Shit, just now both Wang Zhong and Sergeant Major Grigori naively assumed the enemy would come straight into the village.

On second thought, they were a reconnaissance force; upon arriving at unfamiliar village, they would certainly observe from a distance first.

The observing officer put down his binoculars, turned back, and said a few words; those who had remained on their motorcycles now dismounted, pushed their bikes off the road, and concealed them with wheat from the field.

The nine-man reconnaissance team formed a small formation, and one who carried a backpack with an antenna moved next to the officer, handing him an earpiece.

A field telephone!

Wang Zhong couldn’t help but smack his lips upon seeing the field telephone.

Want!

I’m desperately in need of radio equipment!

Even if I could just capture one field telephone without the corresponding pair to use it, that’s a start; I could use it to listen in on enemy conversations, right?

But if the enemy won’t enter the village…

What can be done to lure the enemy into the village?

Suddenly, Wang Zhong had an idea.

He switched back to his natural field of vision and said to the Guardian Army in the post office, “Quick, start a fire, burn something inconsequential. Just make sure you don’t burn any important documents. We need thick smoke!”

Guardian Army Lieutenant: “This…”

"Just now,” Grigori crept over to report, “the machine gunner said the enemy isn’t entering the village. It seems like they saw the sound array on the rooftops.”

Wang Zhong was puzzled, “How did you guys communicate the information?”

"The machine gunner ran down from the bell tower to tell us.”

Wang Zhong looked toward the small door beneath the bell tower, where a soldier was leaning against the wall, gasping for air—he seemed to have run a bit too fast.

Guardian Army Lieutenant: “What does this have to do with lighting a fire?”

"Pretend like we’re burning documents and running away,” Wang Zhong turned to Dmitri, “When the smoke goes up, you drive the jeep, dragging a broom and racing along the road, kicking up as much dust as possible. Come back when you hear machine gun fire!”

Dmitri: “Okay, I’ll tie up the broom first!”

"Move quickly! Don’t let the enemy call in more troops; it will be difficult to handle then!”

Who knows what kinds of demons and monsters are lurking behind this group of recon scouts.

Ten minutes later, thick smoke rose from the postal office’s courtyard.

Wang Zhong, through an overhead view, made sure the enemy noticed the smoke and then slammed the door of the jeep hard: “Quick! Go!”

Dmitri floored the accelerator and the jeep, dragging the broom, burst through the gate, raising a cloud of dust as it sped northeast along the road.

It was fortunate that most of the roads in Kazarlia were these smooth dirt tracks; if it had been asphalt, there wouldn’t have been as much dust!

Wang Zhong switched his view, watching the enemy tensely.

He didn’t have much confidence, after all; the strategy was too rudimentary.

He could only hope that the enemy was blinded by their desire for victory, betting on the adage that pride comes before a fall.

But at least they had tried.

Just as Wang Zhong comforted himself, the enemy commander started shouting, and the scattered troops regrouped and pushed their motorcycles back onto the road.

An officer climbed onto the first motorcycle and sat in the sidecar.

The radio operator with the backpack set straddled the back seat.

Wang Zhong immediately shouted, “Grigori, the officer is in the sidecar of the first car! Don’t hit the wrong one!”

Grigori: “Did you hear that? Hit the second and third ones, leave the first one to me!”

The enemy’s three vehicles charged toward the village, unsure whether they were in a hurry to chase the escaping jeep or to rescue the burning documents.

Maybe they wanted both?

Anyway, they would know once they captured prisoners and interrogated them.

As Wang Zhong watched the enemy, Grigori was signaling to the people in the bell tower, probably also telling them to target the second and third vehicles.

The first motorcycle charged ahead into the village.

Grigori, hidden at the roadside, raised a hand.

All three motorcycles entered the village, but Grigori’s hand still didn’t drop.

The first vehicle was fast approaching the courtyard where Grigori was hidden!

The sergeant major swung his hand forward.

The machine gun on the bell tower immediately opened fire, and the driver of the second car was hit right away, tilting to the left and skewing the handlebars, causing the motorcycle to veer off course and crash into a low wall, its rear wheel lifted high into the air.

The Prosen soldier on the rear seat flew up, flew over the wall, and smashed through the roof of the woodshed, landing in the neatly stacked pile of wood.

The machine gunner in the sidecar was unharmed, picked up the machine gun to resist, but a grenade was thrown into the sidecar.

The next moment, the machine gun flew sky-high.

The third vehicle was fired upon by Tokarev, with all three leather-clad Prussians being hit by several shots immediately, the car itself crashing into a roadside compost heap.

In an instant, only the first vehicle, carrying the officer and the backpack set, remained.

Grigori leapt over the low wall by stepping on the pile of firewood against the wall, landed directly onto the sidecar, knocked the officer unconscious with a knee strike, punched the driver off the motorbike, then, dragging the officer, jumped into the roadside pile of horse feed.

The radio operator left behind tried to raise his submachine gun, but the uncontrollable motorcycle collided with a parked cart, and the operator flew onto the cart under the force of the collision, dazed.

Suddenly, several Imperial Guard soldiers rushed out, Tokarev’s gun pointing at the radio operator.

Wang Zhong became anxious: “Don’t shoot! Don’t ruin my backpack set! My backpack set!”

…

A minute later, Wang Zhong looked at the prisoners in front of him, satisfied.

A total of four alive, exceeding the mission quota.

The backpack set was successfully captured, and they even found maps and many command documents in the officer’s personal file bag.

The young Imperial Guard soldiers, thrilled with the captured universal machine gun, even vainly draped the ammunition belt over themselves, cosplaying another dimension’s Rambo.

Wang Zhong was also very satisfied, hands behind his back, strutting back and forth in front of the prisoners, showing off.

The enemy officer’s face was half-swollen, several teeth gone; he couldn’t be more miserable.

Wang Zhong: “Does anyone speak Prosen?”

Dmitri, who had just returned from driving, raised his hand: “I do! I have participated in military technology exchanges with Prosen and specifically learned it.”

It seems there are quite a few military academy students who speak Prosen; after all, the two countries were “friendly nations” before the war broke out.

Wang Zhong: “Good, Dmitri, you come and let’s properly interrogate this officer—”

Just then, from the top of the post office, Brother Peter called out: “Enemy planes incoming!”

The enemy officer laughed loudly, saying in Ante, “Before we started chasing you, we called in air support. They’re here! You’re going to die!”