9:15 in the morning, Titrick Underground Command Center.
Ahd licked his chapped lips, the blood seeping from the cracks spreading a taste of rust on the tip of his tongue.
He stared at the old IBM ThinkPad T43 laptop in front of him, the screen glowing with a ghastly white light.
A model from 2005, the battery was long dead, powered by an external car battery.
The screen displayed a battlefield sketch hand-drawn using simple drawing software, with rough lines marked with Arabic and scrawled coordinate numbers.
Information was transmitted in the most primitive way, sent via encrypted text ssages from frontline observers using prepaid phones.
A few young soldiers in the command center, who had so education and literacy, were responsible for receiving and translating the information, updating the sketch on another computer using a simple drafting tool.
No real-ti satellite imagery, no drone video streams, no digital maps integrated with IFF signals.
Beside Ahd were several large printed satellite maps, their edges worn and curled.
These were comrcial satellite images bought at high prices on the black market, versions from several months ago, but the outlines of streets and major buildings could still be matched.
On the maps, the positions of friend and foe, fire points, and suspected minefields were also manually marked with red and blue pencils.
Several Motorola walkie-talkies of different models were placed on the table, with antennas of varying lengths corresponding to different frontline channels.
Further away, an old field phone connected to wired communication lines buried in the city—this was the most reliable but also the easiest to detect communication thod, used only at crucial monts.
"The heretics' planes have finished the first round of bombing."
Ahd's voice was not loud, but it carried an icy hatred mixed with a calm control over the situation.
He sneered and said:
"Their infantry and those Kurds, thinking they can just walk in like they're strolling in their backyard..."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over the core leaders in the command center, most of whom were in their thirties to forties, with a fierce determination similar to his own.
"Go, prepare the first wave of 'Flying Cavalry'. When their planes have finished bombing and turn back to refuel and rearm, that will be the window of ti granted to us by Allah."
What he referred to as the "Flying Cavalry" was a rapid assault group composed of more than 250 ard pickup trucks.
This was not a hastily assembled convoy but the trump card in Ahd's hand, the core mobile force of the 1515 reinforcents he led.
The vehicles ca from diverse sources.
They included seized Toyota "Hilux" from the Iliko Governnt Army and Kurd Ard, old Nissan "Patrols," and even so locally assembled no-na vehicles.
The common feature was that the engines had been coarsely tuned, with all non-essential parts removed—the doors, roof, seats, and even parts of the chassis steel were cut away to reduce weight, and on this basis, steel plates were installed for added bulletproof capability.
The welded-on armor plates varied in thickness; so were flattened oil drum sheets, others true armored steel cut from abandoned armored vehicles.
The fuel tank was the most vulnerable part, solved by strapping on sand-filled burlap sacks or tin boxes for barely better-than-nothing extra protection.
The weapons configuration of these "Flying Cavalry" units was also ticulously planned.
The first wave, about eighty "light" vehicles, mainly equipped with PKM general-purpose machine guns (7.62x54mm rounds) and RPG-7 rocket launchers.
Their mission was straightforward and brutal. Charge at maximum speed, regardless of casualties, with the sole aim of disrupting enemy frontline deploynts, breaking formations, and creating chaos.
The drivers and gunners would consu a locally produced amphetamine-type stimulant before departure, its intense effects suppressing fear and enhancing reaction speed, but at the cost of extre exhaustion or even sudden death after the battle.
There would be a brief but fervent prayer ritual before departure, sending these believers into a semi-insane state of "fearlessness."
The second wave had about 120 "heavy" vehicles equipped with DShK 12.7mm heavy machine guns, KPV 14.5mm heavy machine guns, and a few vehicles even fitted with 73mm low-pressure smoothbore cannons salvaged from Russian BMP infantry fighting vehicles.
Their task was to follow closely behind the first wave, surge in once a gap in the defense line was ripped open, suppress enemy counterattacks with heavy firepower, consolidate and expand the breach.
The third wave, about fifty "special" vehicles, dragged makeshift weapon platforms.
So had single, twin, or quad-mounted ZPU series anti-aircraft machine guns, laid flat for direct fire; others had 107mm rocket launchers welded from pipes, capable of a 12-round salvo, with poor accuracy but a wide coverage area and a significant morale impact.
Each vehicle was an independent combat unit, yet accepted roughly unified coordination through basic walkie-talkies.
The tactical thinking was derived from the various irregular warfare thods Ahd experienced during the Syrian civil war, distilled into the most ruthless and effective strategies.
At 9:15 a.m., the explosions from the first wave of airstrikes gradually subsided.
The sky was no longer filled with the howls of diving jets, only the sporadic rotor sounds of Apaches lingering in the more distant airspace.
Most F-16s needed to return to a base 150 kiloters away to refuel and rearm, a round trip and rearmant process that would take at least 45 minutes to an hour.
The interval between airstrikes had arrived.
Ahd did not look at his watch, his biological clock and grasp of the battlefield rhythm had beco instinctive.
He picked up a Motorola walkie-talkie set to the public command channel and pressed the talk button.
No pre-battle rally, no lengthy instructions.
He only said one sentence:
"'Flying Cavalry' first wave, launch the assault."
Kurd Forward Position, Brick Factory Ruins and Surrounding Area.
Major Mahmoud struggled to establish a temporary command post behind a piece of broken wall.
His left ear was still ringing, his right arm slashed open by shrapnel, bleeding even after a basic bandage.
Less than twenty soldiers remained by his side, with half of them wounded.
The radio intermittently relayed reports from various companies and platoons, with formations disrupted and estimated casualties exceeding a third, but the heavy machine gun fire points were finally mostly suppressed thanks to the Apaches and the supporting F-16s that arrived afterward.
"Count ammunition! Rescue the wounded! First platoon, go to the left factory building to establish flank security! Second platoon, reinforce the front cover! Cough, cough, cough—"
Mahmoud shouted before the gunpowder and dust he inhaled into his lungs made him continuously cough.
The faces of the soldiers were a mix of exhaustion, fear, and the confusion of having narrowly survived.
They used piles of bricks, collapsed walls, and burning vehicle wreckage to hastily construct defensive fortifications.
Many people moved chanically, clearly not yet fully recovered from the previous wave of precise and fierce heavy machine gun ambushes.
Then, a strange sound ca.
At first, it was a dull rumble, like distant thunder rolling across the sky, or the simultaneous beating of countless broken drums.
The sound ca from the southern direction of Titrick.
Soon, the rumble gathered and intensified into a bellowing roar, mixed with the sharp, piercing sound of tires skidding on gravel, the screeching of engines at full throttle, and a kind of fanatical shouting.
On the horizon, from the direction of the damaged road south of the brick factory, a wave of tan-colored vehicles surged forward.
It was not a sandstorm.
It was vehicles.
Countless vehicles.
"Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!!!"
The frantic shouts instantly drowned out the roar of the engines, rushing in like a tsunami.
In that voice, there was no fear, only a frenzied excitent that made one's scalp tingle.
Over eighty pickup trucks charged forward like wild, untad horses, without any standard tactical formation, spreading out in a loose fan shape, rushing in from multiple directions at a terrifying speed of over 80 kiloters per hour!
They weren't following the roads but were instead plowing directly through fields, ruins, any path they could forge.
The dust stirred up behind the vehicles ford a yellow cape for this death convoy.
The gunners on the vehicles stood in the violently bouncing pickup beds, many with bare torsos, revealing lean and frenzied bodies.
They gripped tightly onto the machine gun mounts welded to the vehicles or the railing of the pickup beds, their bodies swaying with the vehicle's jolting motions, yet crazily pulling the triggers, spraying a relentless but wildly inaccurate rain of PKM machine gun fire towards the Kurd people.
The RPG operators were even more terrifying.
They crouched or stood in the bed of the pickups, with assistants helping them load rockets.
They fired at groups of people or vehicles when within less than a hundred ters' range.
Rockets trailed conspicuous gray-white smoke trails, screaming as they crashed into the rear of fortifications, among vehicles, on the edges of crowds...
"Fire! Stop them! All weapons, fire!"
Major Mahmoud's shout changed tone, it was a struggle on the edge of despair.
The remaining Kurdish soldiers awoke from their shock, starting to unleash fire with light and heavy machine guns, rifles, and even pistols.
The PKM machine guns and RPG launchers also retaliated against the charging convoy.
The few pickups in the lead were instantly turned into sieves.
A tire was blown out on one vehicle, causing it to violently overturn, disintegrating as it rolled, with the bodies inside being thrown out.
Another was directly hit by an RPG in the front, a fireball explosion engulfing the entire vehicle, scattering parts and debris everywhere.
But more pickups accelerated, charging as if they were bulls seeing red, ignoring everything and rushing straight ahead.
They even ramd through the burning wreckage of their comrades, crushing the fallen bodies, continuing their frenzied charge.
The drivers in the seats had bloodshot eyes, chanting under their breath, flooring the gas pedal, steering only roughly aid towards the Kurd defenses.
Their goal wasn't to shoot back but to charge in, crash in, blend in!
The first wave of pickups had suffered nearly half their numbers as losses, like red-hot iron rods, forging fiercely into the hastily built Kurd defenses.
So pickups didn't stop at all, crashing directly into fortifications, into crowds, into any place with enemies, then exploding or overturning upon impact.
The gunners who survived within the beds jumped out as the vehicles went out of control or stopped, so still with flas on them, drawing out machetes, axes, or rifles with bayonets, charging towards the nearest target with a howl.
The defenses were instantly torn open with nurous torn and bloody gaps.
The Kurdish soldiers, their skin prickled with goosebumps from shock, were forced into the most brutal hand-to-hand lee with these crazed intruders who had rushed in.
The sounds of gunfire, explosions, shouts, screams, tallic clashes, and blades slicing into flesh all jumbled together.
"A breach! Breach in sector B! The enemy's coming through!"
"They're on my left! Too close! Use grenades!"
"Help! Pull up!"
"Hold the line! We can't fall back!"
The radio frequencies were instantly flooded with all kinds of chaotic, terrified, and desperate cries.
While the Kurdish soldiers were preoccupied dealing with the first wave of enemies that breached their positions, the second wave of "heavy" pickups arrived.
These vehicles kept a slightly greater distance, braking or slowing down between one hundred and two hundred ters away.
In the pickup beds, the low roar of DShK 12.7mm heavy machine guns and the tearing canvas-like giant sound of KPV 14.5mm heavy machine guns completely drowned out all lighter weapon sounds on the battlefield.
The 12.7mm and 14.5mm armor-piercing incendiary rounds, fired at such close range, had a devastating power.
They easily penetrated the simple brick and stone-built fortifications, penetrated thin vehicle steel plates, smashing and igniting the bodies and items behind them.
A Kurd machine gun position was targeted by a KPV for a re three-second burst, the sandbag barricade shredded, with the machine gunner and his assistant turned into indistinct blobs of flesh without even a scream.
"We're mixed in with the enemy! They're all around us! We can't tell them apart!"
A Kurd platoon leader cried into the radio, the background filled with deafening gunfire and explosions.
"Repeat! The lines have been breached! Our side is completely entangled with the enemy! Unable to distinguish battle lines!"
Chaos spread rapidly, like dense ink dropped into clear water, engulfing the brick factory and all surrounding areas.
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